- Start early! Make a research plan to stay on track. Check out the strategies on the right or try using the Research Project Calculator if you're not sure where to start.
- Cite your source immediately. That way you won't be stuck with a piece of information but have no idea where it came from (or how to find the source again). Also, creating a citation right at the start of your research process means that you know what your in-text citations will look like. To make your life really easy, go ahead and put in your in-text citations as you take notes. Speaking of which -
- Take good notes. To paraphrase, you need to say things in your own words. That means that both the WORDS and the STRUCTURE of your writing need to be different from the source. Try not to focus on paraphrasing a source sentence-by-sentence; it's a lot of hard work, mostly because it makes plagiarism difficult to avoid. Instead, think about the big picture, your thesis, and how the author's ideas relate to what else you have read. Think about notes as a tool to help you map ideas and construct your knowledge about the topic. If you're not sure where to start, try doing the steps below:
- List the main topic of each paragraph.
- Draw lines between what you have written above to show paragraphs that have similar ideas – these are the key concepts.
- Combine the key concepts in your own words and write a summary paragraph.
- Write a sentence or two to describe the thesis, or main idea, of the article (HINT: to find the thesis, think about what connects the key concepts (Youga, Withrow, and Flint-Ferguson 13).
- Create a concept map based on your understanding of the article. Draw it by hand, or use a mindmapping website like Popplet or MindMeister.
- Cite right. Use in-text citations wherever you use information from your source (even if it's in your own words!) and be sure to include the full citation at the end of your paper.
- Ask for help if you need it! Don't be afraid to ask when you're not sure whether something is plagiarism or not. Talk to your instructor, a librarian, or a tutor at ASAP before handing in your paper. Please bring a copy of the source in question - it will help us figure out if everything is correct, and if not, we can help you fix it!
Tools for note-taking adapted from: Youga, Jan M., Mark H. Withrow, and Janis Flint-Ferguson. Readings are Writings: A Guide to Reading and Writing Well. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996. Print.
