Taking Notes and Tracking Sources
Document Information and Sources as You Work
Keeping track of information that you find - as you work - will save you much time and energy.
Taking Notes - Notes will help you detect patterns to answer your guiding question and may later serve as evidence to support your thesis.
Tracking Sources - This enables you to easily find sources again to review and will be crucial when you need to provide attribution for source material.
As you take notes, here is some advice to keep in mind:
Be aware of what text you copy to avoid plagiarism and "accidental plagiarism." Later, you will need to know what information is quoted vs. paraphrased or summarized.
Evaluate information as you go, including validating sources by using fact-checking sources such as FactCheck.org.
There are many tools and strategies for taking notes. Below are some digital note-taking and source-tracking tools that are available. Also, check out common note-taking strategies that you may use when taking both paper and digital note.
Digital Note-Taking and Source-Tracking Tools
Using Google Docs is a simple way to take notes and supports collaborative note-taking, as well.
Save your Google Docs notes in your Google Drive project folder. You may also bookmark the doc in your project's Chrome bookmark folder.
Use the Research Tool within Google Docs to locate information and cite sources. You may also track resources as you work by using the EasyBib Google Docs Add-On.
Finally, make use of tables, formatting options, and the comments feature to mark-up notes, including using Read&Write.
Google Slides makes it easy to collect text, images, tables, articles, and any web content.
Use each slide like a traditional index card and use the Speaker Notes to annotate the information you find.
With Google Slides, you can keep all of your information visually organized and it makes it easier for you to alter the order of information as you gather it.