Library Research Guide |
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Organizing research notes is crucial to writing a good paper and avoiding plagiarism. Keep all your research notes, articles, rough drafts, assignment sheets, etc. in one place such as a binder or folder. Do not mix your research with other class materials. If you are using an electronic note-card program or a word processing program, then be sure that you are saving every few minutes and saving to multiples locations i.e. floppy disk, CD, Hard drive, School Loop etc.
Note taking for a research paper requires three components:
Bibliographic information of book/article/website should be at top of the page/note card. See Bibliographic Citations. The pages following the first should include a code in the top right corner of the page/card that corresponds with that source. A common code is first initial of author’s last name with the number of notes page/card. (See model below) The student could also color code sources by using a different color paper/card for each source.
Page numbers from the source of the notes in the left margin next to the notes. If you flip a page, write down the new page number.
Good notes differentiate between paraphrases and quotes. Review Avoiding Plagiarism section. The majority of your notes will be paraphrases. You will only keep a direct quote if the quote is so elegant, powerful and perfect that paraphrasing would contaminate its eloquence. All quotes should be transcribed exactly as written and preceded and followed by quotation marks.
Example:
