Week 5 -- Helpful Videos for Note-taking

Class,
Below is a list of helpful videos related to note-taking and research. 

Writing Videos
Taking Notes
Making Note Cards
How to Avoid Plagiarism
How to Write a Great Paper
Note-Taking Strategies
MLA Style
Writing a paper
Thoughts on Writing

Writing 3 Class Notes -- Week 4 (Sept. 18)

Greetings!

We had another good day in Writing 3.  These are diligent, conscientious students; I'm greatly enjoying our class discussions.

We began with working through a couple of ACT/SAT essay prompts.  I divided the class in half and had them brainstorm how they might respond to the questions.  Half of the class worked through this prompt:

18. Some high schools in the United States have considered creating separate classrooms for male

and female students in subjects such as mathematics and science. Some educators think separate

classes will be beneficial because students will be less distracted from learning. Other educators

think having separate classes for females and males will not be beneficial because it will seem

to support stereotypes about differences in ability between males and females. In your opinion,

should high schools create separate classes for male and female students?

Source: The Real ACT Prep Guide, 2005

While the other half discussed this prompt:

25.  Some people say you should be content with what you have and accept who you are. But it is

possible that too much self-acceptance can turn into self-satisfied lack of ambition. People should

always strive to improve themselves and to have more in their lives — friends, things, opportunities.

After all, where would we be if great people, both in history and in our own time, did not try to

have more and to improve themselves?

Assignment: Is it best for people to accept who they are and what they have, or should people

always strive to better themselves?

Source: www.collegeboard.com, 2009

They then presented to the class their thoughts on their respective questions.  They are doing a great job thinking critically and taking apart the various aspects of the assignments.

Regarding the research paper, we began by discussing the basic process that students go through when writing longer research papers.  My hope is that, while they will be producing a well-written paper for this call, they will be learning the steps, strategies and skills that will help them with future writing.  I put together a hand-written timeline to illustrate the process.  Many of the steps may need to be revisited during the researching and writing stages.  We discussed that sometimes your research doesn't reveal the information that you thought it would.  A student shouldn't be afraid to "go back to the drawing board" if original ideas don't match data OR if new material sheds a different light on a topic.  It's all a part of the process.

In addition to reviewing the steps and the process, we talked about various ways to take notes and to keep track of information.  Some use sheets of notebook paper, some use notecards, and some use electronic note-taking tools, like OneNote.  Whichever way the individual student feels choose, he/she should be consistent and ALWAYS  keep track of where the information was found.  We also discussed types of outlines as they pertain to the process:  preliminary outlines, informal outlines, and detailed outlines.

A note about the task of finding good information:  

Some students are concerned about finding the right kind of good, accurate, authoritative and timely information.  One helpful trick is to look where those who wrote articles on your topic found their information.  Google Scholar is a good resource, too.  For some topics that have strong opinions on either side of an issue, don't be afraid to read articles that disagree with your point of view.  It helps to know what the opposition thinks.

For this week, students were to have an initial list of resources and  some general subtopics.  For next week, they are to write an informal outline with the subtopics in the order they feel they should be presented in the paper.

This week's blog:

Class Notes

Helps for Writing Outlines

Evaluating Print Resources

Week 4 -- Taking Notes & Outlines

Have a great week!

Mrs. Prichard

Plagiarism

PLAGIARISM

            “Plagiarism” comes from the Latin, plagiarus, which means kidnapper.  In antiquity, plagiarii were pirates who sometimes stole children.  Plagiarism offers the words or ideas of another person as your own.  Plagiarism happens intentionally and accidentally.  Occasionally, a student will take large portions or whole papers and present them as their own.  Most often, however, the student knows the rules and is careless, or he is uninformed regarding proper citing of sources.

            To avoid plagiarism, develop personal notes with your won ideas on a topic.  Discover how you feel about the stand you’ve taken with your subject.  Then, rather than copying sources directly into the content of your research, synthesize the ideas of the authorities with your own thoughts by using the précis and paraphrase.  Rethink and consider ideas gathered by your reading, make meaningful connections, and when you refer to a specific source, give it credit.

Checklist for documenting your sources

·        Let a reader know when you begin borrowing from a source by introducing a quotation or paraphrase with the name of the authority.

·        Enclose within quotation marks all quoted materials – a key word, a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph

·        Make certain that paraphrased material has been rewritten into your own style and language.  The simple rearrangement of sentence patterns is unacceptable.

·        Provide specific in-text documentation for each borrowed item.

·        Provide a bibliography entry in the “Works Cited” section.

Forms of plagiarism:  (WWS, p. 29+)

·        Uncited data or information;

·        an uncited idea, whether a specific claim or general concept;

·        an unquoted but verbatim phrase or passage;

·        an uncited structure or organizing strategy;

·        misrepresenting evidence;

·        improper collaboration;

·        dual or overlapping assignments.

Bad ideas and attitudes that promote plagiarism:

·        Start late; adrenalin will get you through.

·        Don’t waste time writing until you know what you want to say.

·        Just skim the assignment prompt; don’t get bogged down in details.

·        Part of the assignment is guessing what our instructor expects.

·        Follow your interest above all.

·        To get the lay of the land, start every paper by doing an internet search of key terms and skimming sources that turn up.

·        Do all your work on-screen, where the action is.

·        When taking notes on sources, just summarize; come up with your own ideas when you’re done.

·        Your paper is your responsibility; hole up and write it.

·        During your initial reading of sources, keeping track of publications information will only slow you down, and you may not even use some of the sources.

·        Compose your paper in the file where you collect your sources and notes, so these can be readily drawn in.

·        Try to sound impressive and sophisticated, like a real scholar.

·        Don’t seek help if you find yourself in a jam; it’s humiliating and will single you out to your instructor as a screw-up.

·        In a pinch, borrow a friend’s paper to inspire you, or borrow some notes to work with.

Writing Notes

Note-taking is the heart of research.  Notes taken for a research paper will fall into the following categories:

·        Personal notes:  expressions of your own ideas and thoughts pertaining to your subject and in response to your reading.  Reflect on findings, make connections, record discoveries, explore another point of view, and identify prevailing views and thoughts

·        Quotations notes:  capture the authoritative voices of the experts on the topic, feature essential statements, offer conflicting points of view, show the dialogue that exists about the topic and prove that your have researched the subject carefully.

–  select material that is important and well-phrased; not common knowledge

–  use quotation marks

–  use exact words

–  quote key sentences or short passages, but not whole paragraphs

–  quote from both primary and secondary sources

·        Paraphrase notes:  requires you to restate in your won words the thought, meaning, and attitude of someone else.  Paraphrase maintains your voice or style in the paper and helps to avoid endless strings of direct quotations.

            Five rules of paraphrasing:

·        rewrite the original in about the same number of words

·        Provide an in-text citations to the source

·        Retain exceptional words and phrases from the original by enclosing them within quotations marks.

·        Preserve the tone of the original by suggesting moods of satire, anger, humor, etc.

·        Put the original aside while paraphrasing to avoid copying word for word.

·        NOTE:  When readers see an in-text citation bout no quotation marks, they will assume that you are paraphrasing, not quoting.

·        Summary notes:  describes and rewrites the source material without great concern for style or expression.  These notes record material and statistics that have marginal value for your study, which note an interesting position of a source on a related topic, or to reference several works that address the same issue.  Mark in your notes with quotations any key phrasing that you cannot paraphrase.  Provide documentation.

·        Précis notes:  requires you to capture in just a few words the ideas of an entire paragraph, section, or chapter.  Condense the original with precision and directness.  Reduce a long paragraph into a sentence, or an article into a paragraph.  Preserve the mood of the original.  Write the précis in your own words while retaining key phrases or words.  Provide documentation.

·        Field notes:  charts, notes from experiments, research journals, lab notebooks, and questionnaires.  Interviews require careful-note taking to insure accurate quoting.

Note-taking

How you take notes as you do your research is important.  You shouldn't write down every word you read.  Rather, take down pertinent facts in lists or as bullet points.  Don't copy large portions to quote.  Your paper should be in your own voice.
 
As you read, don't pass over information because you're just not sure whether it will be useful.  This is a very common and costly mistake in research. More often than not, you find that the passed-over tidbit is critical to your paper, and then you won't find it again.

Check out these helpful websites:  the Hunter College Reading and Writing Center and the University of Toronto website and from a Lakewood Library.