Keeping a record of what you have done
If you don't keep a record of the material you have consulted as you go, you are likely to regret this. Often you will need to return to your sources to check the accuracy of your notes. At other points, you might want to refine or repeat your search in the light of your growing understanding of the topic.
There are a number of steps in the process of keeping track of what you have done:
- Record your search strategy
- Record where you found useful information by listing the tools you used
- Ensure that you have enough detail to reference your sources correctly.
 | Surviving First Year Uni Read Surviving First Year Uni and look at Chapter 7 titled, Academic writing and referencing: Essential survival skills. This chapter will give you an overview of the key features of academic writing, including referencing. |
Recording your search tools and strategies
Recording the individual steps in your search is the easiest part: a simple list is often all you need. This can contain the title and call number of books in the online catalogue, the electronic indexes relevant to your topic, or journal articles of potential interest. As you work through your list, you only need to indicate, perhaps by means of a tick, the resources which you have consulted.
Keeping records of where you found information is important for the future. It is often useful to be able to see which of the search strategies you employed was successful. The lessons learnt researching the answer to one assignment topic can often be applied to future tasks. If you write down where you found useful information, you will be able to use the same sources again for different topics.
Making sure you have enough information
You must record your sources if you are to reference correctly. Details such as authors' names, book titles, publishers, journal volumes, year of publication and page numbers are all crucial: you will need these when it comes time to prepare your references and bibliography. If you don't record these details when you do your search the first time, you may find yourself wasting hours and hours trying to find that missing reference.
Exactly what referencing information you require will depend on the referencing style that you are using and the nature of each source. Make sure you are familiar with these requirements before you start to collect information.
