ABSTRACT
This chapter examines plagiarism in Japanese academia exploring the question, ‘What is the effect of the digital reference management tool Zotero on students' university level research and writing composition courses'? A summary of the teaching approach taken and apps used in addition to Zotero, is given followed by a description of how the author tried to answer the above research question over the course of a three-month semester by giving students a pre- and post-treatment test to measure their ability to create a references list for their research papers. The pre-test consisted of 12 academic type sources and the students had to create a references list for these sources and the results were measured for accuracy and number of mistakes. Then the students were taught the referencing app Zotero and the post-test was given. This was a direct repeat of the previous test but with 12 new sources. Finally, the references list from the students' own papers were all measured using the same rubric as the tests. Results indicated that Zotero usage had a major and measurable impact on their ability to more accurately create references list.
