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Research Tips: Note Taking

How to research properly for great results.

Forms of Notetaking

Use one of these Notetaking forms to capture information:

  • Summarise: Capture the main ideas of the source succinctly by restating them in your own words.
  • Paraphrase: Restate the author's ideas in your own words.
  • Quote: Copy the quotation exactly as it appears in the original source. Put quotation marks around the text and note the name of the person you are quoting.

Yes, we know very few people are using Notecards now instead of electronic forms of Notetaking, but the illustrations here include useful ideas for organising your notes in whatever format.

How to avoid plagarism?

How to avoid plagiarism

Plagiarism can sometimes be the result of poor note taking, or paraphrasing without properly citing the reference. You can avoid plagiarism by:

  • citing your references
  • referencing correctly
  • recording direct quotes and paraphrases correctly when note taking.

Quotes

When you use the exact words, ideas or images of another person, you are quoting the author. If you do not use quotation marks around the original author's direct words and cite the reference, you are plagiarising.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is when you take someone else's concepts and put them into your own words without changing the original meaning. Even though you are not using the same words you still need to state where the concepts came from.

Note taking

Poor note taking can lead to plagiarism. You should always take care to:

  • record all reference information correctly
  • use quotation marks exactly as in the original
  • paraphrase correctly
  • clearly distinguish your own ideas from the ideas of other authors and researchers.

Notetaking Example

Notetaking Sheets

These two notetkaing sheets can be downloaded and used whenever you need them.

Notetaking Sheet 1 is designed for handwritten notes that you take when you need to summarise and rewrite information in your own words.

Notetaking Sheet 2 is designed for when you need to create notes or a summarise from multiple sources. You can use this to copy and paste online information and / or handwritten notes. It allows you to compare sources, ensuring full coverage of information.