Taking Notes During Your Research

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25 questions

Note from the author:

A review of how to take notes during a research project.

Introduction

As you work on shaping your research paper, you'll probably discover that you have a wide variety of source materials to consult, read, and take notes from. Taking notes to prepare your paper, whether to support and back up your argument or to provide some kind of disagreement, is important, as is the format of the notes you take. This how-to guide will teach you three different techniques for taking good notes.

Direct Quotes

Report what an author has said

Give a word-for-word account of what you've read. Direct quotations are the exact words of the original author. When the original phrase is vital to grasping the precise meaning or is otherwise interesting, this strategy is employed. The author may be an expert or a notable figure in his or her field, he or she is quoted to avoid the chance of misinterpretation.
For example, if you're researching the differences between poetry and prose, you might use a line from "A Defence of Poetry" by Percy Bysshe Shelley. A paraphrase would likely be longer and less fascinating than the original because the distinction is conveyed so plainly there. 

The following is an example of material that should be quoted verbatim:

"A poem is the very image of life expressed in the eternal truth. Storytelling is a collection of facts that have no further connection than time, place, circumstance, cause and effect; poetry is the fabrication of events according to unchanging forms of human nature as they exist in the mind of God, which itself is a picture of all other minds” (Shelley 102).

What is a direct quotation?

When are direct quotations used?

Why is an author quoted?

Using Paraphrasing

As a general rule, use clear and concise language wherever possible when paraphrasing a sentence or a complete chapter, so that it may be easily understood.

It is a different way of saying the original text. This technique can be used to describe the elements of passages, diagrams, tables, and so on.

The best way to understand your notes is to write them down in your own words.

What should you do when paraphrasing a sentence or a complete chapter?

What is the best way to understand notes?

Using Summary/Commentary

The third kind of note-taking involves summarizing and making comments. When you need to keep track of or capture the overall idea of a big amount of content, a summary is necessary. Its purpose is to condense an extended idea or argument into fewer overall words. Because of this, you have to eliminate some of the less critical details. An exact copy of an author's words can be found in a direct quotation, but summaries can be found in their meaning. If you're describing a passage, you may also wish to comment on it in addition to summarizing the passage. It's a mixture of a summary and a paraphrase.

What is the purpose of a summary?

What do you have to do with a summary when you need to keep track of or capture the overall idea of a big amount of content?

A _________ is necessary when you need to keep track of or capture the overall idea of a big amount of content.

What are Summarizing and Paraphrasing?

In order to write academic papers whether they are research papers, reports, or literary analyses you must understand how to summarize and paraphrase appropriately. If done wrong teachers may believe that you have plagiarized your writing!

What is summarizing?

A summary is a restatement of a text. It is done in your own words and is significantly shorter than the original. Summaries are meant to clarify information and be easy to read. They must be well organized like the original. Most often summaries are a few paragraphs long if a long work is being summarized. If you are summarizing a short work or even just a paragraph summaries can be one paragraph or even one sentence! Sometimes you’ll be asked only to summarize.

What is a summary?

What are summaries meant for?

Writing a Summary

Ok, but how do you write a summary?

If you're going to write a summary, you should know exactly what the text is about. Before summarizing, it's a good idea to read through the entire text. Read it again after reading it once. This time, you'll divide the text into sections, such as the introduction, the body paragraphs, and the end. Each section should be summarized in one to three sentences. To create a more comprehensive summary, you can combine the summaries into one. If you're summarizing an informational text, make sure to use transition words and double-check to make sure the thesis or theme is stated in your own words. Include the author's name and the title of the original work in your summary, as well.

What should you know if you're writing a summary?

Before writing a summary, it's a good idea to do what?

How many sentences should each section of a text be summarized in?

How can you create a more comprehensive summary?

What should you use if you're summarizing an informational text?

What should you include in your summary?

So, how do you write a paraphrase?

So, how do you write a paraphrase?
It is difficult to write a paraphrase at first. When paraphrasing, you want to do two things. To begin, you should use synonyms for the majority of the words in the paraphrase. For example, "75%" can be changed to "three-fourths." The meaning remains unchanged, but the words do. Second, you'd want to alter the sentence structure. Try rearranging the sentence order or combining more than one sentence. Doing these two things protects you from accusations of plagiarism. Finally, when incorporating your paraphrase into your paper, don't forget to introduce it and cite it.

What happens when you use synonyms for the majority of words in a paraphrase?

What do you want to do when paraphrasing?

What are two ways to alter the sentence structure?

What does using synonyms and combining more than one sentence protect you from?

What should you do when incorporating a paraphrase into your paper?

What Should I Cite?

So, what should I cite?

The general rule of thumb is that you cite all quotes and paraphrases as well as any information that is not considered common knowledge to your audience.  This means, depending on the type of paper and your audience you may need to cite or not cite different pieces of information.

It is most likely common knowledge if:
The information is something people learn in K-12 i.e. America declared its  independence in 1776.
The information is easily found in multiple credible sources without any variation i.e. Barack Obama is the first African-American President of the USA.  
It is a well-established idea or fact in the field you are writing about i.e.  An IEP is an individualized education plan (if writing about education).

What is the general rule of thumb for citing sources?

What is common knowledge?

Ok, but what are the guidelines about what must be cited?

Ok, but what are the guidelines about what must be cited?
Here are the guidelines for when you DEFINITELY need to cite.  If it is a direct quote
If you have paraphrased an idea
If you are including statistics, numbers, or other data unless you yourself  conducted the survey, research, poll, etc.
If you summarize a source you don’t need an in-text citation but must  mention the title of the source and the author’s name within the summary.

What must you include in a summary of a source?

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