Finding and using knowledge

Bookmarking / favourites

You can use your browser bookmarks or favourites to keep a record of sources you have used. There are a number of free tools on the Internet that you can use to manage your bookmarks with the advantage of enabling you to synchronise and access from any device.

Combining resources from different sources

Referencing

Proper referencing can help you organise and manage your resources. See our Referencing section.

This includes a link to information on RefWorks which is available to health and social care staff in Scotland with an OpenAthens account.

A few tips for writing a summary or digest:

• Be aware of not introducing bias from your question, the selection of your sources or your interpretation of the findings 
• Read all the literature and plan your digest
• Use language appropriate to your audience
• Do not use acronyms
• Keep sentences short 12-15 words
• Use short paragraphs and bullet points for lists
• Check spelling and typos
• Ask someone to proof read your digest
• Use a standard format so your audience becomes familiar with the layout
• Use headings and sub headings

Be aware when quoting, paraphrasing or summarising and always acknowledge the source, this will save you from the risk of plagiarism and infringing copyright

Synthesising, unlike summarising and paraphrasing, which use the ideas of only one author at a time, involves combining ideas from a range of sources so as to group and present common ideas or arguments. It is an essential skill for literature reviews and other forms of ‘serious’ writing.

The Cochrane Public Health Group (2012) have developed two further definitions :

According to the University of New England (UNE), there are six steps to producing an information synthesis :

1. consider your line of argument and draft a topic sentence ;
2. read the texts you have retrieved in your literature search ;
3. write notes in your own words from each of your sources, try to keep notes to one single page ;
4. link common ideas to make sets or groups of information from each source (different text colours or font faces can help with this) ;
5. number the groups to follow a logical order in writing your synthesis (or review/systematic review) ;
6. draft your conclusions from the notes beginning with a topic sentence and citing your sources.

Copyright, together with moral rights, patents, trademarks, database rights, design rights and performers' rights are some examples of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), which is the name given to the broad range of legal rights that protect the fruits of human innovation, intellectual creativity and invention. 

Information about dealing with issues relating to copyright can be found on the Copyright site.