How will
you take notes?
It's now time to consider how you will
take notes for your paper. Especially
if your project is a large one, at this point it's important
to decide how you're going to
Organize your notes, so you can find things
easily, and
Choose or develop a system that works well
for you, so that you will know without question:
- The title and author
of the source you're drawing from
- The page number
that you found your information on
- Whether your information is a paraphrase
or a direct quote (an exact copy of
text written by another person). If your memory is very
good, it's wise to make a habit of quoting directly and indicating
clearly in your notes that this is what you've done. A person
with a treacherously good memory may paraphrase while taking
notes and then closely reproduce the original text in his / her
paper. If you're blessed with a memory of this sort, be sure
to finish your paper a few days before it's due. This way, you'll
be able to let it rest for a bit and then read it over and be
able to say to yourself, "Oops, I've read this before..."
and fix the problem.
You might consider using Microsoft OneNote,
which is a powerful searchable database for note taking--the
basic version is now available FREE, with versions for both PC and Mac. OneNote includes a good tutorial, is
available in most campus computer labs, and is part of the Microsoft
Office bundle, so you may already have it on your computer.
So long as you're careful to indicate in your
notes when you're using a direct quote, OneNote works splendidly
in conjunction with OCR (optical character recognition) software
such as OmniPage
that allows you to scan a source and then copy and paste text
into OneNote. If the cost is challenging to your budget, there's
no need to buy the latest version. A good-quality scanner is
more important than the most recent software.
There are also free OCR software programs
available on the Internet (do a Google search for "free
OCR software") but be careful not to download unwanted software
or even malware at the same time. This is how sites offering
free software make their money: Unless you're very careful you'll
get an extra software piggybacking on the one you actually want. |

Click on the thumbnail above for large image |
If you decide to stick with physical
notes, use 8.5 x 11 inch notecards
instead of small ones. This will give you plenty of room to include
all of the info you need for each notecard. It also will help
to avoid writing on the back of the card--which has the potential
to drive you crazy as you look for something on the fronts
of a stack of index cards when it turns out that you've written
the crucial information on the back of a card. Altho it's
laborious, carefully organized and written notecards will save
time when you write your paper. |

Click on the thumbnail above for large image |
Writing notes in a notebook or using sticky
notes is OK for a small project, but
for a large project using a minimum of ten to fifteen sources
this quickly becomes unwieldy and will result in your wasting
time looking for your notes on a specific topic.
© Jan Mainzer |