Research: Taking Notes

By Ms. LeeDowntown Magnets High School2011

Number your Research Questions

Your research questions will help you plan your essay

It is important to organize your questions in an order that will guide the logic of your essay

Example: Number your research

questionsSubtopic: Capitalism’s Effect on Coal Mining

1. What are the economic benefits of coal mining?2. What methods of mining have been used and why?3. Who has benefited from these methods?

Subtopic: Coal Mining’s Effect on Miners4. How have mining methods affected miners’ health

and safety?5. How have mining methods affected class structure?6. How have mining methods affected the

environment?

Sub-Topic: Research Question Your note cards should include your

sub-topic and one research question at the top.

At the bottom right, write an in-text citation to show where the information was found.

Use citationmachine.net to figure out how to write the in-text citation.

(author or title #)

Coal Mining’s Effect: How have mining methods affected miners’ health and well-being?

As a doctor, James Kay-Shuttleworth observed the working conditions in England’s mines during the eighteen-hundreds.

He wrote, “Whilst the engine runs, people must work – men, women, and children are yoked together with iron and steam. The animal machine is chained fast to the iron machine, which knows no suffering and weariness.”

(Ellis and Esler 181)

Taking Notes:

1.List the main points from a long text in your own words.

2.Quote a significant passage only if it’s from a primary source (interview, diary, memoir, autobiography, historical document, or a literary source).

Quote Significant Passages from Primary or Literary

Sources ONLY! Be careful to copy a significant

passage word for word!

Use quotation marks to show what words were copied.

Use an ellipses (…) to show where you omitted words in a quote (but make sure the quote makes sense without those words!)

Quotes – Using Ellipses

If you omit a few words, use 3 dots: “The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square

coat, square legs, square shoulders…all helped the emphasis” (Dickens 1).

If you omit sentences, use 4 dots “The scene was a plain, bare,

monotonous vault of a schoolroom….The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present… swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim” (Dickens 1).

Quotes within your Quote

If you are quoting text that already includes dialogue in quotes, change the dialogue quotes to single quotations:

Example:

“’Girl number twenty,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, ‘I don’t know that girl.’”

(Dickens 2)

How would you punctuate this and add a citation (from page 178 of your World History textbook)?

Dr. Southwood-Smith worked in two districts of London and wrote: “Uncovered sewars, stagnant ditches and ponds, gutters always full of putrefying matter…It is not possible for any language to convey an adequate conception of the poisonous condition in which large portions of both these districts always remain.”

In-Text Citations

Always cite your source in parentheses at the end of:

Your notes Any passage that you quote

Works Cited

Ellis, Elisabeth Gaynor, and Anthony Esler. World History: The Modern World. Boston: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.

Dickens, Charles. Hard Times. New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 2004.

NOW – Create Note Cards!

Browse the World History textbook and locate the sections that address your topic

Decide which research questions are covered

Create Note Cards with these research question headings and the in-text citation

Write your Name, Period#, B17 on the back of each card

Bring these to class every day in your research folder!