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Research Process: A Step-by-Step Guide: 4a. Notetaking

This guide will help you understand the research process that you need to go through for your assignments.

Note Taking Skills

Note-Taking Skills

Effective note taking from lectures and readings is an essential skill for study. Good note taking allows a permanent record for revision and a register of relevant points that you can integrate with your own writing and speaking. Good note taking reduces the risk of plagiarism. It also helps you distinguish where your ideas came from and how you think about those ideas.

Effective note taking requires:

  • recognising the main ideas
  • identifying what information is relevant to your task
  • having a system of note taking that works for you
  • reducing the information to note and diagram format
  • where possible, putting the information in your own words
  • recording the source of the information

Reading and note-taking strategies

1. Be selective and systematic

As you take notes from a written source, keep in mind that not all of a text may be relevant to your needs. Think about your purpose for reading.

  • Are you reading for a general understanding of a topic or concept?
  • Are you reading for some specific information that may relate to the topic of an assignment?

Before you start to take notes, skim the text. Then highlight or mark the main points and any relevant information you may need to take notes from. Finally - keeping in mind your purpose for reading - read the relevant sections of the text carefully and take separate notes as you read.

A few tips about format

Set out your notebooks so that you have a similar format each time you take notes.

  • Columns that distinguish the source information and your thoughts can be helpful.
  • Headings that include bibliographic reference details of the sources of information are also important.
  • The use of colour to highlight major sections, main points and diagrams makes notes easy to access.

2. Identify the purpose and function of a text

Whether you need to make notes on a whole text or just part of it, identifying the main purpose and function of a text is invaluable for clarifying your note-taking purposes and saving time.

  • Read the title and the abstract or preface (if there is one)
  • Read the introduction or first paragraph
  • Skim the text to read topic headings and notice how the text is organised
  • Read graphic material and predict its purpose in the text

Your aim is to identify potentially useful information by getting an initial overview of the text (chapter, article, pages) that you have selected to read. Ask yourself: will this text give me the information I require and where might it be located in the text? 

3. Identify how information is organised

Most texts use a range of organising principles to develop ideas. While most good writing will have a logical order, not all writers will use an organising principle. Organising principles tend to sequence information into a logical hierarchy, some of which are:

  • Past ideas to present ideas
  • The steps or stages of a process or event
  • Most important point to least important point
  • Well known ideas to least known ideas
  • Simple ideas to complex ideas
  • General ideas to specific ideas
  • The largest parts to the smallest parts of something
  • Problems and solutions
  • Causes and results

4. Include your thoughts

When taking notes for an assignment it is also helpful to record your thoughts at the time. Record your thoughts in a separate column or margin and in a different colour to the notes you took from the text. 

  • What ideas did you have about your assignment when you read that information?
  • How do you think you could use this information in your assignment?

Tips for Notetaking

Here are some important tips for notetaking:

  • Use index cards to keep notes and track sources of information used in your paper.
  • Create numbered Reference cards for each source of information.
    • Include all of the citation information (i.e., author, title, publisher, date, page numbers, etc.) you will need to write on your Reference page.
    • Record the citation information in Harvard format. When it comes time to write your Reference page, it will be easier to organise your sources alphabetically.
  • On each card:
    • Use only one side to record notes.
    • Record only one idea, fact or quote from one source on a note card. It will be easier to rearrange them later when it comes time to organise your paper.
    • Include a heading for the topic of the card. 
    • Include the original source of the information. If you have created numbered Reference cards for each source, you will only need to include the source number.
    • Include the page number where you found the information.
  • Taking notes:
    • Use abbreviations, acronyms, or incomplete sentences to record information (as long you will understand them later). This will speed up the note taking process.
    • Do not write down everything. Extract only the information that answers your research questions
    • Use one of the following note taking forms:
      • Summarize the main idea of the article, then outline its main points.
      • Paraphrase or record notes in your own words.
      • If you plan to use an exact quote, make sure you copy the quotation exactly as it appears in the original source. Enclose the quote in quotation marks and note the name of the person you are quoting.
    • Use symbols, diagrams, charts or drawings to simply and visualize ideas.

Do You Have a Flashdrive?

These are called many things - flash drive, thumb drive, USB storage device .. whatever you call it get one to save all of your school documents.  Keep it with you at all times and use it !!!  As soon as you start your Word document or your PowerPoint project save your work to your USB and keep saving your documents as you work.  It will save much time and grief if something happens to your work and you haven't saved it.  These drives are not expensive.  Check the supermarket and post office flyers and you may even find one on sale for less than $10.  The following document, prepared by Mary Williams (Ivy Tech faculty member),  will explain how to rename your drive in case you lose it and also how to save documents.  Click HERE. 

Note Taking from Written Text

Make your notes count. A simple method to use when you are taking notes from written sources of information can be found here. 

Note Taking Tips

Note-taking helps you remember what you've read. In fact, a good set of notes can be the foundation for your assignment. Use the tips found on  Ergo to help you get started.