Note Papers

Gathering and Organizing Information Using Notebook Paper or Word Processing Notes

Another way of taking notes to make sure that everything about one topic is together is to use one sheet of notebook paper for each topic.

For each topic, you can also use a separate word processing document, such as Word, Pages, or Google Docs.

Each page would look like this:

Tips

• Summarize or paraphrase main ideas instead of copying whole sentences or paragraphs. (If you are recording a quote, write it down word for word and put it in quotation marks.)

• All the notes on a single page are on the same topic but from multiple sources.
  
  
• Keep a numbered list of all the sources you use and record the source number with your notes.

• Keep track of your sources so you can use Citation Maker to make your bibliography, works cited or reference list.

• Ultimately, you can devise any system for identifying the note papers that you want. You just need to be sure of the following:
  • You can tell which topic the information refers to
  • You can identify the source and the page for each piece of information

If you produce your final product from your own notes and credit your sources, you should be able to avoid plagiarism.