Organising results

As you are searching, you will want to keep track of the evidence you are gathering. You should always cite your sources, and therefore, need to know where they came from. It's easier and less time consuming to do this as you go, rather than trying to retrace your steps.

You can use a reference or citation manager to collect, store and organise papers and reports. There are a number of different free and paid-for tools, such as Mendeley, which can be used on a browser or as a separate application.

Some databases allow you to save your searches, search results and set up alerts for words or topics.

These tools are particularly useful for keeping track of numerous resources. If you're only looking for a handful of papers it may be easier just to bookmark the articles in your browser, download and save (where possible) in a folder using a standard naming convention. Alternatively, keep a spreadsheet with details of the article and key points, or just note them somewhere, making sure to be as specific as possible.