Objectives of Note Taking

1. To record the main ideas that will form the backbone of your research report.
2. To gather specific evidence to support your main ideas.
3. To record the exact wording of sources you may want to quote in your paper.

Unavoidable Difficulties of Taking Notes

1. You cannot tell ahead of time exactly what information you will need.
2. You cannot copy down everything you read.

Secret of Taking Good Notes

1. Develop a system and stick to it.
2. Know what not to take notes on as well as what to write down.

Note Content
1. Background information that you need to understand the research topic better.
2. Summary of general ideas supporting your preliminary thesis statement.
3. Explanatory such as histories, definitions of terms, plot summaries, biographical data,
and other material that you may need to provide for your reader.
4. Quotations, examples, and anecdotes that will illustrate or support your ideas in the
paper.
5. Little known facts or questionable and controversial ideas about your topic .
6. Statistical figures, such as percentages, weights, amounts of money, ratios, and dates that
are not commonly known, as well as the sources in which you found them.

Guidelines for Taking Effective Notes

1. Use phrases instead of complete sentences.
2. Avoid using unusual abbreviations as a form of shorthand in note taking.
3. Identify facts and opinions as you take notes.
4. Facts of common knowledge (e.g., the bombing of Pearl Harbor) do not have to be
documented. Unusual or little-known facts (e.g., how many civilians were killed in the
surprise attack) do need to be documented. Make sure you include your source on the
note card.
5. When copying quotations, use ellipses if you omit a few words. Otherwise, you may not
remember that you condensed the quoted material.
6. Keep all your note cards until your paper has been graded. Your instructor may ask to see
your notes or may have questions about a fact in your work.

Note-Taking Techniques
1. Keep notes in a flexible and convenient form, so that they can be sorted out, arranged or
shuffled to suit any order you need and to add or take out cards as your research
progresses.
2. Use a uniform size of index cards (5” x 8”). Resist the temptation to write on odds and
ends of paper, since these are easy to loose.
3. Keep the cards bound with an elastic band and store them in a portable case, preferably in
a strong envelope.
4. When taking notes, use only one side of the card.
5. Use a separate note card for each idea from each source.
6. Write only one entry—items of information constituting a single point—per card,
regardless whether the note is brief or not. If the notes you need to take cannot be
contained on one side of the note card, use another note card.
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 7. Take notes in your own words. You may use phrases, lists, key words, sentences, or
paragraphs.
8. When you find a particularly poignant passage—perhaps a phrase or even a whole
sentence or two—then copy it on your note card exactly as it appears, comma for comma,
letter for letter. Enclose the passage in quotation marks.

Potential Pitfalls in Note-Taking

1. Do not rely too heavily on one source. In general, you should have about an equal
number of note cards from each source.
2. If your subject permits, try to use book and periodical references and other sources.
However, the topic ultimately determines the appropriate sources.
3. Be sure to check non-print media sources, which can provide additional perspectives.
Television documentaries, public—radio talk shows, films, lectures—all are legitimate
research sources.
4. Do not overuse direct quotations. You can usually summarize ideas in fewer words.
Probably less than one-fourth of your cards should quote directly.
5. Make absolutely certain that you put quotations marks around any words not your own.

Types of Note-Taking

A. Paraphrase
A paraphrase is restatement of another author’s ideas and arguments in your own words.
Paraphrasing is important primarily because it allows you to first make sense of the material,
i.e., understand it, before you write it in another form. As such, you are actually starting to
write what could already be a part of your paper. In addition, paraphrasing helps you resist
the urge to quote too much from your source, thus lessening committing plagiarism.

Though this may seem easy enough to do, it is helpful to keep following points in mind:

1. Be careful to retain the sense of the original; otherwise, you run the risk of
misinterpreting or distorting the idea. To reduce this risk, mentally digest the material
before you take down any notes.

2. Paraphrase as freely as possible. A good paraphrase retains the sense of the original
but rephrases it in the writer’s own words and arrangement of words, sometimes even
throwing new light in the text.

B. Summary
A summary is also restatement of another’s ideas, but unlike the paraphrase, a summary is
shorter. It is usually just a sentence or two, and it focuses merely on the central idea of the
material or passage. A longer summary may include some points that support the central
idea, but the organization of these follows the original’s. Because this is just a restatement of
an author’s idea/s, a summary should not contain your opinions and conclusions about the
subject matter. This is often valuable when faced with material which does not contain a
quotable passage or statement, or contains some information not relevant to your research.
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Summarizing is also a valuable skill because it entails fully understanding the material before
reducing it to its gist. In the process, you become very familiar with the different sources you
can use for your paper, which then allows you to see your topic from different perspectives.
Later, as your research takes shape and you need to get more specific details, you can refer to
the summaries you made to locate your source more quickly.

How to summarize:

1. Read the material thoroughly.

2. Determine the author’s organization of ideas by dividing the material into different
parts and labeling each section. This is similar to creating an outline of material and
identifying the major sections and headings of the material.
3. Construct one-sentence summaries of each of the sections.
4. Read the mini-summaries you made and then determine the central idea of the entire
material. State this in a thesis statement of 1-2 sentences.
5. Combine your summary with the original to make sure that you accurately expressed
the author’s ideas and that you did not use the author’s exact words. Remember to
indicate the source of the material/passage you are summarizing.
6. Edit for language and coherence.

C. Direct Quotation
Quoting from the material means writing down the author’s original words. No changes
are made with regard to content, words used, spelling, capitalization and pronunciation.
Use this type if:

 It seems to you that the phrasing of the original text is such that a paraphrase of it
would diminish it in terms of either significance or rhetorical appeal.

For example, the following statement, though expressing a generally held view,
acquires emphatic significance when phrased in the words of President Marcos:

The sugar industry is so important to the Philippines that

President Marcos himself once said, “Should the sugar
industry collapse, the Philippine economy would fall with it.”

The next statements, while expressing commonplace truths, are so wittily phrased that
they merit direct quotation:

A person who flatters you for what you do not have is only after what you do
have.

Biting remarks are often the results of snap judgments.

If money is the means to an end, then inflation must be an end to the means.

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 You want to back up your explanations and arguments with what experts and
authorities in the field have said about it in order to add credibility to your paper.
 You think that the writer’s explanation is already clear and restating it will distort or
just muddle it.
 You are uncertain of precisely how you will finally use the data in your paper. To be
on safe side, take down the data as it appears in the original and reserve it as such
until you decide whether to quote it in full or in part, or to paraphrase.

When using direct quotation, remember the following:

1. Always enclose quotations within quotation marks, remembering to put in the
final part of quotation marks.
2. If you need to omit certain word or words, phrases or even whole sentences
within quotation, indicate the omission by using an ellipsis (three spaced periods
…). For example:

Original:
“What we require to be taught, regardless of whether we are Physics or English
majors, is to be our own teachers.”

Quotation with ellipsis:

“What we require to be taught . . . is to be our own teachers.”

If the omitted material occurs at the end of a sentence, the ellipsis or three paced
periods is naturally followed by a period, thus making for a total of four spaced
periods. Thus:

Original:
“There is no answer to the evils of mass employment and mass migration into
cities, unless the whole level of rural life can be raised, and this requires the
development of an agro-industrial culture, so that each district, each community,
can offer a colorful variety of occupations to its members.”

Quotation with the ellipsis at the end of the sentence:

“There is no answer to the evils of mass deployment and mass migration into the
cities, unless the whole level of rural life can be raised ….”

3. If you need to insert into a quotation a word or more of explanation, clarification,

or correction – known as an interpolation – place it with square brackets, not
parentheses.

Thus:
“But since these masters [Picasso, Braque, and Matisse] appeared to be …
rebelling against academic training, art teaching itself has been discredited.”

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 “[Man] is immortal, not because he, along among creatures, has an inexhaustible
voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and
endurance.”

If the original text contains en error, e.g., error in fact, logic, diction, spelling, and
you wish to assure the reader that the error in question is not your own, place the
Latin word “sic” (meaning “so”; always underlined) immediately after the error:

“The assurance came from an imminent [sic] educator.”

4. If you wish to emphasize a certain word or phrase of the quotation, you may
underline these even if they are not so underlined in the original, provided you
indicate this choice in either of two ways:

a. by the bracketed phrase “italics mine” or “emphasis mine” immediately

after the italicized (or if you are using a typewriter, underlined) words:

“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. [Italics mine.] He
is immortal … because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and
sacrifice and endurance.”

b. by the parenthetical phrase “italics mine” or “emphasis mine” immediately

following the quotation:

“It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure;
… I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure; he will
prevail.” (Italics mine.)

5. When copying a quotation that is spread over two pages of the original text, use a
virgule (/) to indicate the exact place in which the text ends in one page and begins
on the next.

Thus:
“Instead of dying a natural death/with the introduction of Christianity, animistic faith
healing prospered. Rather than uproot the traditional beliefs of the indios, the clergy
used them as a means of enforcing the new religion.”
(pp. 1337-1338)

If it later happens that you decide to quote only the second sentence, then you will
know that it is taken from page 1338 of the text.

6. Finally, it is always advisable to preface the quotation with notes indicating the
context in which the quotation appears in the original. In this way, when rereading
your notes, you will be reminded of the original context and thus avoid quoting it out
of its context. For example:

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 Many Protestants fail to distinguish between the Church’s officials regard for the
Blessed Virgin Mary and popular devotion to her.
“What a world of difference lies between the relevant love for the Mother of Christ
which we find in early Christianity and then in many ways, intolerable exaggeration
of the Madonna cult, especially in Latin countries, characterized as it is by a
spiritually extravagant popular sentimental attachment, with a corresponding lack of
any theocentric or Christo-centric orientation of life.”

Source: Manlapaz, E.Z., & Francisco, M.E. (2005). The new Anvil guide to research paper
writing. Pasig: Anvil Publishing, Inc.

Sample Notecard (5 x 8 index card)

RC
Genetic Basis of Cancer 263 Call
Slug Number
B76
1971 (if applicable)

“In familial cancer, a genetic defect may be carried in the original cell; this
Notes defect then causes the cells of certain tissues later to change so that in some, a
Direct cancer nucleus develops.”
Quotation

Author Brooke p. 15 Page

Number
Direct Quotation Book

Type of Type of
Notes Reference
6 Material
Note: Attach a clear copy of the original article from which the notes were taken. Highlight the specific
information used in the article.

Source (adapted): Chua, H. F., Dayag, D. T., Mirador, J. F., & Plata, S. M. (2002). Thinking and
writing research: A complete guide to independent research paper
writing. Manila: De La Salle University Press.