Notetaking for Research CREATING A WORD DOCUMENT TO HELP ORGANIZE YOUR THOUGHTS

Using Word instead of notecards  You will not be using notecards to take notes on your sources. You will create a word document for each source.  WHY????  To save time!!! Remember Thursday night!!  If you type your notecards, you can never lose them, you can change them easily, you can cut and paste into your research and you can always print them out!

What will the document look like?  Choose the first document that you will be taking notes on. Remember that you should have ACTIVELY READ this document at least twice already!  Head your word document in the following manner: 1.) Create a right justified running head with your last name and page # 2.) Create a left justified header which includes the source letter (A-J, remember you can only have 10 sources) 3.) Add the type of source. Remember you must have a MINIMUM of 5 academic/scholarly journals and can only have 2 video sources, 2 newspaper/magazine sources and only 1 website. 4.) Under your source letter, add the APA citation for the article.

Your Header will look like this: Source: A Type of Source: Academic/Scholarly Journal Bernstein, M. (2002). 10 tips on writing the living Web. A List Apart: For People Who Make Websites, 149. Retrieved from

Begin taking Notes  Your first note for each source will be labeled with the source letter and the number of that note. Therefore every note for source A will begin with the letter A, every note for source B will begin with B and so on.  The notes will be labeled chronologically as they appear in the source. The first note taken in source A will be A1, the second A2 and the third A3. and so on.  The note being taken will follow next. It should only be one thought. Do not try to put too much information into each notecard. Two to three sentences at the most.

Direct Quote  Below the note you need to indicate whether the note is a DQ or direct quote, a P (paraphrase) or a S for “summary.”  A direct quote should be used sparingly. I say that a rule of thumb is to have no more direct quotes than one has pages in her paper. Therefore, a 5 page paper would have no more than 5 direct quotes.  You should only use a direct quote when you cannot rephrase what is being said in an effective manner.  Direct quotes are indicated by the use of quotation marks (“) at the beginning and at the end (“) of the quote and is also internally cited.  A direct quote does not have to be, but can be something someone said.

Paraphrase  Paraphrase means to put into your own words. In order to paraphrase, ot is best to read the part that you want to use and look away from it and try to restate it without looking back.  Paraphrases are roughly the same length as the original.  Most of your paper will consist of paraphrases and summaries.  Make sure that the rephrased passage is truly that, or it will show up like a direct quote and you will have to put quotation marks around it.  A paraphrase is not set off by punctuation, but must be cited internally.

Summary  A summary is used when information several paragraphs long can be shortened.  A summary is also in the authors own words.  A summary is not set off by punctuation, but does need to be cited internally, like a paraphrase.

Sample note A1 Many people find that technology can overwhelm them, leading to anxiety. Having a work and a social can help avoid being “on the clock” all of the time. P(add a page number here if your article has page numbers) A2 “Nearly 35 percent of all people working in the technology field suffer some sort of burnout “ DQ page 23

Sort into topics  After you have completed all of the notes for one or two sources, you can begin to see trends or topics emerge. It would be helpful if you could go back through your notes and begin to sort the notes into different topics so that it is easier to organize your paper.  Add the topic next to your source letter and note number. See in bold below: A1 Anxiety Many people find that technology can overwhelm them, leading to anxiety. Having a work and a social can help avoid being “on the clock” all of the time. P(add a page number here if your article has page numbers)

And so on….  Follow the instructions above with all of your sources.  There are no specific requirements regarding the number of notes for each source, but the sources with greater information will clearly be stronger sources.  Make sure that you look for new information in your sources. You do not want to repeat the same thing over and over again.  If you do not find a great deal of information in a source you may consider discarding it. Remember you can only have 5-7 sources on your references page.