Get a list of distinct values in List

Notes.Select(x => x.Author).Distinct();

This will return a sequence (IEnumerable<string>) of Author values -- one per unique value.

Distinct the Note class by Author

var DistinctItems = Notes.GroupBy(x => x.Author).Select(y => y.First());

foreach(var item in DistinctItems)
{
    //Add to other List
}

Jon Skeet has written a library called morelinq which has a DistinctBy() operator. See here for the implementation. Your code would look like

IEnumerable<Note> distinctNotes = Notes.DistinctBy(note => note.Author);

Update: After re-reading your question, Kirk has the correct answer if you're just looking for a distinct set of Authors.

Added sample, several fields in DistinctBy:

res = res.DistinctBy(i => i.Name).DistinctBy(i => i.ProductId).ToList();

public class KeyNote
{
    public long KeyNoteId { get; set; }
    public long CourseId { get; set; }
    public string CourseName { get; set; }
    public string Note { get; set; }
    public DateTime CreatedDate { get; set; }
}

public List<KeyNote> KeyNotes { get; set; }
public List<RefCourse> GetCourses { get; set; }    

List<RefCourse> courses = KeyNotes.Select(x => new RefCourse { CourseId = x.CourseId, Name = x.CourseName }).Distinct().ToList();

By using the above logic, we can get the unique Courses.