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You will find more source papers than you have time to read. It is easy to get bogged down in the wealth of published material. Keep your subject area in mind and do not read everything indiscriminately. Skim‐read a new reference to decide how much attention it deserves. Start by reading the abstract, skimming the subheadings and then the first paragraph or so of the introduction and the last paragraph of the discussion. Only read in detail those papers that are particularly relevant.

Keep a copy (photocopy, scanned image, or electronic copy) of key references and make notes of (or highlight on photocopies) any useful information. Save the full reference, since all material cited in a research report must be listed in full in the reference list; there are few things as annoying as having to re‐find the details of a reference that you read much earlier. For journals, the full reference includes the authors' names and initials, year, article title, journal title, volume number, and page numbers. For the other types of references, see the guidelines for the reference list in Chapter 6. For books, in addition to noting the authors, publishers etc., take down the library classification number for your own reference in case you need to return to it at a later date. Increasingly, many papers are available online. The level of access depends on the services subscribed to by your organisation. All libraries offer an interlibrary loan service to provide access to works that are difficult to get. When using such a service, note the date on which you request any interlibrary loans to help to keep track of your requests. If you have access to reference management software (such as EndNote,⁷ Mendeley,⁸ or Zotero⁹) then it is worth using this since it will make creating your reference list easier when you finalise your report.

Be critical as you read; do not accept everything as true just because it is published. Look at the evidence and decide whether the conclusions are justified, or whether the results could be interpreted differently. It is, unfortunately, not uncommon for assertions to be made with no supporting evidence. You will find that different authors in the same field may disagree. It is particularly important to distinguish opinions and speculation from evidence. You can make your own interpretations and conclusions from the work of others and cite them using expressions such as ‘an alternative explanation for the results of Green and Brown (2010) is that …’. Read critically and keep your use of the information relevant for constructing your own account.