Once you have the right industry target, you will then need to find efficient ways to track your research. The good news is that there are many free services to help you out. Of course, Google offers an extensive set of online features that allow the easy creation of documents. With these, you can copy and paste web links and articles.

If you use Word, then you can set up a service such as Dropbox. With this, you can sync all your files in the cloud. This means that any changes you make to a document will be instantly updated across your systems, be that a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. This is especially useful if you are likely to be doing research on a number of different devices.

A more developed research tool is Evernote. It essentially makes it easy to save just about anything, including blog posts and even audio recordings. So, what if you like to use old-fashioned pen and paper to write your notes? Well, you can do this with Evernote as well, that is, by using a smart pen, like you can buy from Livescribe.com. Your notes will be wirelessly transferred to your Evernote account. This type of device can cost anywhere from 150 to 300 dollars.

Then there is OneNote, owned by Microsoft. With it, all of your content is connected to the Office apps. For example, if you insert an Excel spreadsheet in your notes, you will see preview charts and diagrams at the side of the page.

OneNote is also optimized for mobile devices. That is, you can easily draw, erase, and edit information by swiping your finger across the screen.

Keep in mind that there are hundreds of note-taking apps on the market, so it is impossible to review all of them in this eBook. The good news is that top companies such as Microsoft and Google have top-notch offerings that integrate with their other apps. But it is also worth taking a look at apps from smaller companies such as Dropbox or Evernote. In other words, before deciding on a note-taking app, it's a good idea to try a variety of them out.