Reference Formatting with Zotero and CSL

Reference Formatting with Zotero and CSL

Overview

Proper citation formatting is essential for academic writing. This skill covers using Zotero with Citation Style Language (CSL) files to automatically format references in any citation style.

When to Use

• Preparing a manuscript for journal submission
• Converting references between citation styles
• Generating bibliographies from research collections
• Batch-formatting citations for large projects

Prerequisites

• Zotero installed (desktop or CLI)
• Basic understanding of bibliographic formats
• (Optional) Pandoc for command-line workflows

Steps

Step 1: Export from Zotero

Export your references from Zotero in a portable format:

1. Select items in Zotero
2. Right-click → Export Items
3. Choose “Better BibTeX” or “CSL JSON” format
4. Save as references.bib or references.json

Step 2: Select a Citation Style

Download the appropriate CSL file from the Zotero Style Repository :

• Chicago Manual of Style (Author-Date or Notes-Bibliography)
• MLA 9th Edition
• APA 7th Edition

Save to your project directory as style.csl.

Step 3: Format with Pandoc

Use Pandoc to format citations in your document:

pandoc document.md \
  --citeproc \
  --bibliography=references.bib \
  --csl=style.csl \
  -o document.pdf

Step 4: Standalone Bibliography

Generate a standalone bibliography:

pandoc --citeproc \
  --bibliography=references.bib \
  --csl=style.csl \
  -t plain \
  --metadata nocite='@*' \
  -o bibliography.txt

Example

Input

@book{moretti2013,
  author = {Moretti, Franco},
  title = {Distant Reading},
  publisher = {Verso},
  year = {2013},
  address = {London}
}

Process

Apply Chicago Author-Date style.

Output

Moretti, Franco. 2013. Distant Reading. London: Verso.

Tips and Best Practices

• Keep bibliographic data in one canonical format (BibTeX or CSL JSON)
• Use Better BibTeX Zotero plugin for consistent citation keys
• Test formatting with a few entries before processing large batches
• Some styles require additional fields (DOI, URL, access date)

Related Skills

• Textual Analysis Basic

References

• Zotero Documentation: https://www.zotero.org/support/ 
• CSL Specification: https://docs.citationstyles.org/ 
• Pandoc Citeproc: https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#citations