Academic Integrity Toolkit

Note-making is part of the research process, helping you to understand, consider and structure information.

Good note-making helps you to avoid unintentional plagiarism by carefully and appropriately recording the details you need to use references correctly. It also enables you to focus on the important and relevant information, and to understand and make connections with other materials. Note that copying and pasting onto your computer is NOT note-making: you need to process what you read, think about the purpose for reading it, and write down only what is important.

1. Think about what you want to find out before you start reading; make a list of questions and look out for ideas that answer them.
    
2. Put your pen down or turn away from your computer, and try to read at least a paragraph before deciding if you need to make a note of anything.
    
3. Include your own thoughts, ideas and evaluations as you read; mark up anything especially important.
    
4. Consider and note how you might use your reading to answer your assignment brief.
    
5. Always note the full bibliographical details for any source you use; do this for each source before you start to make notes on it.
    
6. Include the page number as you make notes, even if you’re not noting a direct quote; you may need to check back later.
    
7. Have a system for making notes: always mark direct quotes with quotation marks; you might also use other markers like asterisks, for instance, to mark important ideas, or have a code to mark notes relating to particular themes or topics.

When you have made your initial notes, you could organise the key ideas to show connections and group ideas together. This will help create a structure for your writing.

Here are some examples of how you could organise your notes, using the tips from this page:

Some students are anxious about using the Internet for their research, while others use only websites because they are easy to search. The better approach is somewhere in the middle. The Internet is just another means of communicating information. You would not use every book or periodical as an authoritative academic source, and you should exercise the same judgement and commonsense when using websites.

Search wisely

A simple Google search for a topic phrase may produce thousands of results, not in order of their academic level! Consider who may have the information you need and go there directly: for instance, a Government website for statistics on British society, or a medical research charity for research reports on a specific pharmaceutical trial. Try Google Scholar or databases like Web of Knowledge (via the Library’s website) to source journal articles.

Evaluate carefully

Academic books and journal articles go through a process of evaluation by experts before they are published. Most websites do not. Consequently you need to do your own evaluation before deciding whether to use an online source. Things to think about include:

Cite correctly

There are models for citing online sources in all of the different styles of referencing. The key is to look for the equivalent details to those you would need to cite a book or journal article: author, date, title and publication details. Then add the date you accessed it.
 

Full citation (in Harvard style): The Higher Education Academy (2013). Academic Integrity Service. Online at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/academic-integrity, accessed 10/5/13.

In-text citation (in Harvard style): The Higher Education Academy, 2013.