NOTETAKING
Notetaking is the basis for many forms of written presentation; including an essay, biography, history, lecture notes or presentation. It is essential for completing assignments in institutions of higher education and because of this is a skill that must be taught to students before leaving high school.
The points listed below are necessary rules to follow in order to complete a set of quality notes:
- notes should be taken from reliable up to date resources
- notes should be taken from more than one resource (3 or more is best)
- if the subject is controversial notes should cover both points of view
- notes should never plagarize by encompassing entire sentences.
When exact wording is desired use quotation marks and include a footnote saying from where the wording was copied. Let's take each point in turn and discuss its meaning:
- how does one know if a resource is reliable?
- what are resources?
- videos, the internet, magazines etc.
- how does one cover differing points of view?
- plagiarism, what is it?
- can it mean expulsion from a university?
- how do we use of quotations from authorities in the field to support our arguments?
- under use and over use.
We see then that notetaking (sometimes called notemaking) is an essential part of successful research projects. Before any report can be completed, no matter what format the final product takes notes are necessary and the means by which information from more than one resource is combined. Often it is not and easy task to teach. When beginning notetaking, students usually begin writing their reports as soon as they open a reference resource, by copying entire sentences. This is a wasteful process because:
- time is wasted writing unnecessary words
- it leads to plagiarism
- time is wasted rereading unnecessary words when the final report is compiled
- key or important words and thoughts are hard to distinguish
Students should be taught that a note is:
- is usually a phrase
- begins with a dash
- contains important information (key words)
- is collected from a variety of resources
- is spelled correctly to help with final editing
The following format can help in teaching this process. Once notes have been collected the following skills can be taught.
- categorizing information
- evaluating information
- creating the final product
- editing
- revision
- writing the bibliography.