Module 4: Taking Notes Using an Idea-Based Strategy

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How are you doing on your research?  Although identifying your topic, searching databases for relevant articles, and finally selecting your articles can be a grueling process, the toughest part can be taking notes in a way that will facilitate simplify that actual act of writing.

Note taking is often organized by articles.  This means that all of the information from a single document is written on the same piece of paper or in the same document or in a notetaking table.  This is an Article-Based Strategy towards taking notes.

A more effective strategy is to organize your notetaking document by content area.  Open a document, create headings that are relevant to your research, and, as you find new information in your reading, enter specific facts under the appropriate headings.  This is an Idea-Based Strategy. 

I have created a 6-minute video to teach you about using the Idea-Based Strategy.  

Caveat: I realize that I am talking about emphasizing writing Literature Reviews and am using a subject-based research topic.  I plan to redo that part of the video using a more literature review-ish topic.  I am interested in your opinion of how I created this video.

I hope that this is useful in your harvesting important ideas and research from your selected articles.

Z