Notetaking

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Notetaking

• Using Note Cards for Your Research Paper

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Definition

• Note taking is an indispensable part of
  writing a research paper. Your notes record
  information from the sources that you will use in
  writing your paper.
• Therefore, it is necessary to critically
  evaluate the texts or articles you are reading
  and to make reasonable choices about what will
  and will not be useful for your paper. Otherwise,
  you will overload yourself with information and
  spend too much time sifting through notes.

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Why Note Cards?

• Helps you to organize material

• Easier to identify sources

• Information at your fingertips

• Good study tool

• Helps you to avoid plagiarism

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Types of Note Cards
Cards for recording your sources
Cards for recording notes on your topic
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Purpose of Source Cards
Every time you find a source that might be useful
for your research paper, you need to prepare a
Source Card (Bibliography Card) for it. All of
your Source Cards, taken together, make up
your Working Bibliography. A Source Card serves
3 purposes

• First, it enables you to find the source again.
• Second, it enables you to prepare documentation
  for your paper.
• Third, it enables you to prepare the list of
  Works Cited that will appear at the end of your
  paper.

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Source Card Essentials

• Each time you use information from a source,
  write the following information on your source
  card

• 1. Author
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• 2. Title of article, book, magazine, or
• other source
• Place of publication
• Name of publishing company
• Date of publication
• Any other information pertinent to
• that specific source being used

Bibliographic entry
Assign a number to each source used. Place it in
the right-hand corner of your note card.
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Example of a Source Card
Taken from an article in a MAGAZINE
Kopel, David. Arms and the Greeks. Liberty.
Aug. 1999. 4 Sept. 99. lthttpwww.libertysof
t.com/liberty/features/ 76Kopel.htmlgt.
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Gathering Information

• There are three basic types of notes

Summary
Summaries or shortened versions of the material
includes lists also
Paraphrase
Material is put into your own words
Direct Quotation
Record authors material word for word
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Making Summary Cards

• Contains the main points of the particular
  research in a nutshell
• Close your book and then write a summary
• No quotation marks (put in your own words)
• Use when the source runs too long to be quoted or
  paraphrased

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Making Cards for Paraphrasing

• Writing the idea of another using your own words
  and sentence structure
• Your most common note form
• Usually about the same length of the original

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Making Cards for Quotes

• Material is recorded exactly as it is taken from
  the source
• Anything that is quoted directly from the source
  must be enclosed within quotation marks
• Use when the source material is especially
  well-stated

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Parts of a Note Card
Describes the notes information and keeps you
from having to read the entire note each time you
want to know what the note says
Source card
5 Reason famous

he was and is an
everlasting glory to the literature of his
country. 102
Information
Page reference
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Another example
3 Family Background
middle-class family father (John Chaucer)
a vitner (sold wines)
Mother Agnes no last name known for her
maiden name
98
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Note Taking Tips

• Keep your topic, controlling purpose, and
  audience in mind at all times. Do not record
  material unrelated to your topic.
• Make sure that summaries or paraphrases correctly
  reflect the meaning of the original.
• Be accurate. Direct quotations are picked up
  word-for-word. Use quotation marks at the
  beginning and end of quotation.
• Always double-check page references. Its easy
  to copy these incorrectly.

• Double-check statistics and facts.
• Nonessential parts of a quotation can be cut if
  the overall meaning of the quotation is not
  changed. Indicate omissions of nonessential
  material from a quotation by using ellipsis
  points, a series of 3 or 4 spaced dots. Use 3
  dots (. . .) when cutting material within a
  single sentence use 4 dots (. . . .) when
  cutting a full sentence, a paragraph, or more
  than a paragraph from a quotation.

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Plagiarism

• One of the purposes of using a Working
  Bibliography and note cards is to help you to
  avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism is the act of
  intentionally or unintentionally treating work
  done by someone else as though it were your own.

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How to Avoid Plagiarism
Here is a simple test to determine whether
something is plagiarized Ask yourself

• Is this information, idea, or statement common
  knowledge?
• Did this information, idea, or statement come
  from a source outside myself, or did it come from
  my own experience or as a result of my own
  creative activity?

If the information, idea, or statement is NOT
common knowledge, and if it came from an outside
source, then you must credit that source.
Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism.
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Once you have written, sifted through, and
organized your note cards, then you are ready to
begin writing your outline.