Taking down notes

Notetaking is a very crucial task in writing an honest term paper.  However, many students have not developed the proper way of taking down notes.  When the teacher asks them to submit their notes, they usually submit notes that are copied word for word from a source or two.

The first step in notetaking is reading.  Read a source one at a time and look for ideas that you could use in your paper. Each idea is to be written on one side of a note card.  Take note, do not use the back part of your index card and do not lump more than one idea on an index card.  This is done so that arranging them to make an outline would be easier for you.

See to it that you also write down the source of each idea---author, title of book, page, publishing company, place of publication, year of publication.  The source info is to be written on top of the index card.  Limit the number of ideas you borrow from each source and see to it that you get ideas from as many sources as you can.  If your teacher requires you to read 10 sources, then do so.