Visit an online database or your university library and obtain a copy of an article that you think will be of use to an assignment you are both currently working on. Use the checklist in Box 3.13 to assess the relevance and value of the article to your assignment.

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Box 3.13 Checklist Advice on how to make notes when reading First of all, throw away the highlighter in favour of a pen or pencil. Highlighting can actually distract from the business of learning and dilute your comprehension. It only seems like an active read- ing strategy; in actual fact, it can lull you into a dangerous passivity. ✓ Mark up the margins of your text with words: ideas that occur to you, notes about things that seem important to you, reminders of how issues in a text may connect with your research questions and objectives. If you are reading a PDF copy on screen, use the 'sticky notes' feature of Adobe Reader® This kind of interaction keeps you conscious of the reason you are reading. Throughout your research these annotations will be useful memory triggers. ✔ Develop your own symbol system: asterisk a key idea, for example, or use an exclamation mark for anything that is surprising, absurd, bizarre etc. Like your margin words, your hieroglyphs can help your thoughts when you first read it. They will be indispensable when you return to a text later in the term, in search of a particular passage that you may want to refer to in your project report. Get in the habit of hearing yourself ask questions - 'what does this mean?', 'why is she or he drawing that conclusion?' Write the questions down (in your margins, at the beginning or end of the reading, in a notebook or elsewhere). They are reminders of the unfinished business you still have with a text: to come to terms with on your own, once you've had a chance to digest the material further or have done further reading.