Conde Library: Inquiry: Making Sense of Information

Key idea

These are the steps taken when reading/listening to/watching information sources.

Note taking workshop
A powerpoint which takes you through symbols and methods that you can use to make your notes meaningful and easy to review later.

Essay Writing: How to Organise Your Research
This article gives you some advice on making notes while researching. It suggests organising your notes by topic, rather than by source/article.
Best note taking formats
This article from The Conversation talks about why note taking is important in remembering and understanding information. It gives clear instructions on how to take notes.
How to Take Better Notes: The 6 Best Note-Taking Systems
This article gives an overview of multiple note taking styles, including Cornell notes and mindmapping.

Note-taking Scaffold
You may wish to use this scaffold to keep your research notes.
1. In column 1 brainstorm all the questions which you think you might need to answer.
2. In column 2, copy and paste the information which might answer the question
3. In column 3, paraphrase the information
4. Column 4 is optional. You may wish to keep track of the sources you used to answer the question
Note-taking Scaffold #2
A different type of note-taking scaffold. This one includes space for the source, key points in your own words, direct quotations, links to your research question and comments bias/reliability.