Many database subscription services will allow you to e-mail citations or full copies of articles to yourself. You can save these on a computer or memory device. Other researchers print or photocopy source materials, but this is more expensive. If an article is really important to your research, you may decide a hard copy is useful.
Working with electronic files, photocopies, or printouts—as opposed to relying on memory or hastily written notes—has several benefits:
You save time spent in the library.
You can highlight key passages, perhaps even color-coding them to reflect topics in your outline.
You can annotate the source and get a head start on note taking.
You reduce the chances of unintentional plagiarism, since you will be able to compare your use of a source in your paper with the actual source, not just with your notes.
NOTE:Web sources that you use for your research may change or become inaccessible. Make sure that you record the site’s URL and your date of access, information needed for your list of works cited.
Information for a working bibliography