Writing Lessons & Advice: Essay Help- Taking Notes for Research
The 2002 Spider-Man film imprinted a resounding quote on pop culture: “With great power comes great responsibility.”
In a similar way with research, with great information comes great responsibility. It is the writer’s job to use their findings wisely, just as Peter Parker was implored to wisely exercise his developing superpowers. The consequences of plagiarism emphasize the need for this as well. But how does one do that? This is Lessons & Advice on the answer: taking notes.
Note-taking done right and well leads to better-organized ideas and sources, effective use of information you find, and of course, avoiding plagiarism. A reference from Southern Louisiana University describes notetaking as “the process of extracting only the information that answers your research question or supports your working thesis directly.” Just identifying and locating worthy source material with this mentality is helpful if you haven’t started already. Even if you have potential sources to work with, you’ll want to delve into them further with your questions and/or thesis in mind to do either of two things: to make sure the contents is practical to your research and/or to extract information to include in your research.
What you extract can be noted in one of three ways: summary, paraphrase, or direct quotation. You’ll also want to note the citation or publication information of the source; you’ll need it for proper quotations and your bibliography page.
Notecards are a pretty common technique/tool to use as they can provide a tangible means for planning the structure of your paper, like doing a puzzle or using a pinboard to connect clues in a mystery. But if an index card isn’t enough space, pages from a notebook may be used to accomplish something similar. If preferred, you might also use a system of color-coding or symbols to help determine the arrangement of your information. You will likely have to write your notes by hand when implementing these tools/techniques, but doing so provides some of its own benefits as well. If you do take electronic-based notes, make very certain to have backups in case of technical issues or errors that could “eat” your homework.
Hopefully, this helps you move forward with your research and essay writing! Check out the other Essay Help lessons for more tips on other parts of the process:
Starting research
Essay styles
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