English 1302

Proper note-taking procedures

There are three very good reasons to develop good note-taking habits. First, of course, evaluating and integrating information is one of the main skills that defines a college education—you'll be doing a lot of this not only in your academic career, but in any career open to you once you have a college diploma. Second, by taking notes efficiently you won't have to waste valuable time in the revision phase verifying and correcting references that should have been recorded properly in the research phase. And finally, good note-taking is essential for avoiding plagiarism.

Here are some note-taking tips you'll find useful:

· Create a "paper trail." As soon as you decide that a given source might be useful for your project, make photocopies of the relevant pages of books and journals, and print out pages of online sources. Be sure that you also have copies of the copyright page of a book or journal (indicating the title, edition, publisher, and so forth), and the exact URL and access date of online sources.

· If you are unable to make photocopies from a book that seems useful (due, perhaps, to library restrictions or the lack of a photocopier), try the time-honored method of copying out passages on 3-by-5 or 4-by-6 index cards, being sure to include page numbers.

· Throughout the research phase, and especially when you're doing seemingly mechanical or even "mindless" tasks like photocopying or hand-copying, your unconscious mind is working on the project and you'll generate all kinds of ideas about the focus, organization, and writing of your paper. As soon as you become conscious of any such idea, record it immediately in a separate "idea notebook." (Don't kid yourself into thinking you'll remember things later—you won't!)

· In your notes, either summarize source material very generally, in your own words, or quote material exactly, with quotation marks—don't try to paraphrase at this stage because later on you won't remember which words are yours and which are from the source.

· Keep materials well organized. You'll be amazed at how swiftly you'll accumulate piles of notes, photocopies, print-outs, and so on, and it's essential that you be able to determine precisely where a given quotation or idea came from—which source, which author, which page.

· Keep a working bibliography—not just the authors and book titles (or URLs) you're using, but a complete record of all the information you'll need later when you're compiling your final bibliography, the "Works Cited" listing at the end of your paper. (See the " Making a bibliography " section for tips on how to do this correctly.) You won't want to have to go to the library the night before your paper is due just to find a source again in order to get a publication date or a page number—don't make yourself do things twice!

· Save copies of all your research materials, whether notes you collected on paper, photocopies, or electronic files. (And always back up digital files somewhere other than the hard drive where you have your working files.)

Research Notes Example

Guiding Question: Are labor unions outdated and no longer useful?

Working Thesis:

Sources:

Jacoby, Jeff. "Right-to-Work Laws Free Workers from Coercive Union Control." Are Unions Still Relevant? Ed. Noah Berlatsky. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. At Issue. Rpt. from "Right-to-Work Laws Stand for Choice." Boston.com. 2012. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 30 June 2015.

“In the years right after World War II, more than one-third of the US workforce was unionized; now the union membership rate is just 11.8 percent, and most of those members are government employees . In the productive economy, Americans continue to flee from organized labor. Last year only 6.9 percent of workers at private companies belonged to unions.” (Par.5)

“That's not a principle, it's a shameless pretext. Unions demand monopoly bargaining power—the right to exclusively represent everyone in a workplace—and then insist that each of those workers must pay for the privilege. This is the "principle" of the squeegee man who aggressively wipes your windshield when you stop at a red light, then demands that you pay for the service he has rendered you.”

By the union's "free rider" logic, shouldn't all voters be forced to subscribe to a daily newspaper, since all of them benefit from its journalism? And shouldn't every company be compelled to support the Chamber of Commerce, which lobbies on behalf of business, whether individual firms ask it to or not?” (Par. 8 and 9)

Madland, David, Ross Eisenbrey, and Karla Walter. "Right-to-Work Laws Hurt Workers, Society, and the Economy." Are Unions Still Relevant? Ed. Noah Berlatsky. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. At Issue. Rpt. from "Right-To-Work 101." Center for American Progress. 2012. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 30 June 2015.

“Unions have a significant and positive effect on the wages and benefits of union and nonunion workers alike. Unionized workers are able to bargain for better wages, benefits, and work conditions than they would otherwise receive if negotiating individually. The effect on the average worker—unionized or not—of working in a right-to-work state is to earn approximately $1,500 less per year than a similar worker in a state without such a law” (Par. 9).

(2)