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UNIT THREE: READING THE LITERATURE - KEEPING

RECORDS AND MAKING NOTES
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Contents
3.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 21
3.2. Competences .......................................................................................................... 21
3.3. Reading the literature 21
3.4 Keeping records by using index cards 22
3.5 Making notes 23
3.6. A final word 25
3.7. Summary 25
3.8. End of unit task 25

3.1. Introduction
The main points of this session are:
1. Reading the literature for your BA project.
2. Keeping records and making notes

3.2. Competences
On completion of UNIT THREE students will be able to use reading strategies
which will help them better understand the reference materials or the literature in
their field of research. They will also be able to identify and apply reading note-
making techniques of what they find relevant in their reading. The way these notes
are used in the actual writing of the project is the focus of a future session.

Study time for UNIT THREE: 2 hours

3.3. Reading the literature

Once you have established the topic of your BA project, planned it and did all this
with some books or journal articles in front of you or at least in your mind you are
ready to start reading.

Reading is, of course, a very complex process, but it is not the main focus of this
course. What we are interested in here is how we read what we read and how we
make notes of what we find relevant in our reading. The way these notes are used in
the actual writing of the project is the focus of a future session.

For this ‘To do’ you need to inspect one of the books/articles that you
have read (or are currently reading for your project) and any piece of
paper on which you have made notes while reading and which you have
used or intend to use in writing your paper. Now, think about the way you
have read the sources for your project. You may want these guidelines
and make notes below:

- what do you do first when you have a new (?) and highly
relevant book in front of you?
- how do you know the books/articles you have gathered in view
of reading and using them for your project are relevant for
your topic?
- demonstrate the relevance of the book/article you are
inspecting at this moment
- describe the way you make notes when you read.
USE THIS SPACE:

3.4 Keeping records by using index cards

The virtues of index cards (which you can buy at any stationary or you can make
yourselves) have often been pointed out:

- they are neat, easy to handle and give you a nice physical feeling of
something achieved
- they are useful as a record of everything you’ve read because they will
contain: bibliographical details (name of author, date, title of article or
book, place of publication, publisher, page numbers if it is an article)
- on the same card you can put: page references to the original and/or to
your own paper and some key words
- some people like to keep their favourite quotations in a separate index card
system
- some people keep a card index system for ‘issues’, e.g. feminine
characters in 19th century novel’ – then notes on what they have found out
about that in various places

Example
Here are some examples of how to record bibliographic
information:
a) Source card for a book:
Subject (optional): SLA
Author: R. Ellis
Year of publication: 1994
Title: The Study of Second Language Acquisition
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Place of publication: Oxford

b) source card for a journal article:

Subject (optional): Language Testing
Author: Patricia A. Denham
Title: Tests of aural/oral control of language
Journal: Papua New Guinea Journal of Education
Volume No; Issue No.: Vol. 16, No. 3
Date of volume/issue: 1969
Page reference: pp. 1-16

c) source card for an article or chapter in a book:

Subject (optional): African History
Author: D.H. Jones
Year of publication: 1961
Title of article/chapter: Peoples and kingdoms of the Central
Sudan
Editor: in Roland Oliver (ed.)
Title of book: The Dawn of African History
Place of publication: London
Publisher: Oxford University Press
3.5 Making notes
1. Read this quotation from Bell (1996: 29) which includes valuable
advice about the way you should make notes when reading:
‘[…] devise a system of note-taking which records the actual evidence
obtained from your sources. Some researchers prefer notebooks, some
prefer loose sheets of paper and others prefer note cards. If you use a
notebook, information will be recorded as it is obtained. Leave a wide
margin. At a later stage you may wish to cut up the notebook, preferably
into pieces of uniform size, to enable you to sort material into sections
ready for planning the format of your report.

Whether you use notebooks, loose sheets or note cards will depend on
your preference, but the type of information you record and the method
of recording will be the same. There is some merit in selecting cards. […]
Experience has shown that it is best to make only one point on each card
and to use only one side of the paper or card. You will then have
maximum flexibility in sorting out the cards at the writing stage.’

2. In the space below make notes about the relevance of this quotation
for your own ‘note-taking style’.
 Examples of using cards for note taking:
a) quotation
Heading
(optional)
LANGUAGE: CORRECT USAGE
(use quotation marks to indicate direct quotation)
(use dots in square brackets to indicate something omitted)
‘Even though the language changes century by century’ […] ‘we ought
to be able to see it is still an important question for every generation
whether it should say this or that, whether this or that form is correct,
and so on, it would be regrettable if those who were most competent to
decide such questions were to leave the decision to the less competent.’
Author/date of publication/page reference:
Jesperson, 1946, pp. 98-99

b) summary
Heading
(optional)
LANGUAGE: CORRECT USAGE
(abbreviation for author’s name) J. admits that nothing can stop language from
changing, but insists that ‘linguistic historians’ (direct quotation) still have a duty to
guide the less well-informed on what is acceptable or not acceptable at a particular
time.
Author/date of publication/page reference: Jesperson, 1946, pp. 98-99

3.6. A final word about keeping records and making notes in the computer
If you prefer to keep records and make notes directly in the computer, and are
obviously able to use one with this aim, by all means do so. And , if you have
experience in doing this in the computer, can you give everybody some tips? Let us
discuss this in our meeting for Tutorial One.

3.7. Summary

The focus in Unit THREE was on the techniques for making notes at the
stage of reading the sources for your project..
3.8. End of UNIT TASK

Now that you have had examples of how to make notes, try to use some of
these techiques and make some notes here about how helpful they were.
Prepare to share your experience on the occasion of Tutorial One.,