1. Using Note Cards for Your Research Paper
Notetaking
Using Note Cards for Your Research Paper

2. 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.

3. Why Note Cards? Information at your fingertips Good study tool
Helps you to organize material
Easier to identify sources
Information at your fingertips
Good study tool
Helps you to avoid plagiarism

4. Types of Note Cards Cards for recording your sources
Cards for recording notes on your topic

5. 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 for it. 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.

6. Source Card Essentials
Each time you use information from a source, write the following information on your source card…
1. Author #1
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
Assign a number to each source used. Place it in the right-hand corner of your note card.

7. Example of a Source Card
Taken from an article in a MAGAZINE
Kopel, David. “Arms and the Greeks.” Liberty. Aug
4 Sept <
76Kopel.html>. #6

8. 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 author’s material word for word

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. Parts of a Note Card Describes the note’s 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

13. 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

14. 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. It’s 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.

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

16. 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.

17. Once you have written, sifted through, and organized your note cards, then you are ready to begin writing your outline.