Capture studies on turtles often include a specific technique to mark the turtles. The most common technique involves marking the marginal scutes with a notch, typically with a file, in a pattern that allows for a numeric or alphabetic code to be read and recorded. Some turtle may live as long as 4–6 decades or more and this technique has been proven effective for these long-lived animals. There are several marking codes that are widely used that include numeric (additive) codes or alphabetic codes, each with its own style of marking and decoding. These marking techniques require a map (carapace map) of the shell of the focal animal so that the code can be accurately used to mark turtles, and read the code during later capture. Among these different codes, one system stands out as the most clear and easy to read and reread (Gibbons 1988), and does not require a carapace map. A strong plea is extended to all turtle researchers to include the method of marking on data sheets, within reports, as part of the methods section of published articles, and that the method and data be archived with the landowner/manager, for later use by future researchers.