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Latest FOSS Academic post is live!

https://fossacademic.tech/2025/08/19/zotero-zettlr.html

It's a note about the relative strengths and weaknesses of using #Zettlr and #Zotero for note-taking and writing. Spoiler: I thought I would use Zotero less and less, but I find myself using it just as much as I ever have.

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#FOSSAcademic

William Denton

@wdenton@cosocial.ca replied · 2 months ago

@rwg Thanks! Zettlr's new to me, and I'll check it out. I'm an Emacs person, but I'm always on the lookout for free and open systems to recommend to students.

A small correction: Zotero uses SQLite, not MySQL.

Robert W. Gehl

@rwg@aoir.social replied · 2 months ago

@wdenton oof, you're right about SQLite!

I definitely definitely definitely recommend Zotero to students. I teach it regularly. I'm not sure many of them take me up on the idea (particularly undergrads).

As for Emacs, I took one look and got super confused. I think I grew up with too many GUIs...

William Denton

@wdenton@cosocial.ca replied · 2 months ago

@rwg I'm glad to hear that about Zotero. I'm doing a bunch of workshops on it in the fall term—when they're in the library calendar system I'll send you a link in case you want to tell your students. They'll duplicate some or all of what you do, but maybe some students will just need that extra encouragement.

Robert W. Gehl

@rwg@aoir.social replied · 2 months ago

@wdenton no, please do send them along! I don't think I spend enough time on it, to be honest. A workshop probably would give them a deeper dive.

David Adler

@perspektivbrocken@social.tchncs.de replied · 2 months ago

@rwg I kind of used it in a similar fashion. As I used LaTeX for writing with Bibdesk instead of Zotero though (even though I also use Zotero based on the Bibtex document, when I am writing in LibreOffice or Word).

Bibdesk for summeries and notes on the text only.
@zettlr for own thought or synthesizing between multiple references.

In this case I also find it quite convenient to have included my Bibtex file in Zettlr, so I can easily refer to articles or books from within my Zettlr notes.

Robert W. Gehl

@rwg@aoir.social replied · 2 months ago

@perspektivbrocken @zettlr Yeah, this sounds really similar. There's a place for citation-specific analysis, a space for middle-stage synthesis, and a space for writing it up/presenting it to others.

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