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 Citing Your
Sources
When to Cite Your Sources
Taking
Notes Electronically
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Quiz
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Taking Notes In An Electronic Age
McKenzie, Jamie. "Seven Antidotes to Prevent Highway Robbery in an
Electronic Age."
FNO From Now On: The Educational Technology Journal. 7 (1998):
22 July, 2002 <http://questioning.org/Q4/cov98may.html>.
McKenize writes:
"Information in electronic forms is easy to store
and organize for later review. . . As much as possible, we want our
students to know how to take notes on their findings electronically
. . .and to be able to search their findings months later with some
efficiency and power. At the same time, they are citing
the source of their information and ideas."
McKenzie has developed a convenient database
system to help students take notes from online sources. The same concepts
and techniques can be adapted to taking notes on index cards or even taking
notes in a spiral notebook.
By taking electronic notes in a database system, your
information is more easily retrieved than if it were buried in piles of
printed pages.
Electronic "note cards" are set up with basic
sections or fields.
Here is McKenzie's example of an electronic note card:
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Source: May, 1998, From Now On, Jamie
McKenzie, "The New Plagiarism: Seven Antidotes to Prevent Highway
Robbery in an Electronic
Age." http://fno.org/may98/cov98may.html
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Subject: research, plagiarism, strategies
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Keywords: incentives, rewards
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Abstract: McKenzie
suggests the use of green ink to help student differentiate between
the ideas they have collected and the new ideas
they have built in reaction to those inspirations (this is a paraphrase
of McKenzie's words and should be credited to him).
Reminds me a bit of art with "found
objects." Here we have "found ideas" and "fresh
ideas." I like students having to keep them separate. I could
then look over their shoulders while they did research to see what
kinds of balance might emerge. It might change how I did assessment?
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Here is the basic structure of the electronic note card
record
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Source: Author, Title, Date, Volume,
Issue #, URL
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Subject: Consists of main ideas and
can assist in organizing your findings
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Keywords: Offer a greater level of
detail and subcategories within your subject words. Keywords can
also be very useful in constructing online searches.
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Abstract: This is where you save
pertinent information.
Use different color fonts to differentiate between
- ideas collected
from others and
- original ideas that have emerged in
reaction to others
Red
ink for others' ideas
Green ink for your own
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Setting up your research notes as an electronic database
will streamline the process of organizing, writing, and documenting the
sources used in your research.
The next sections discuss the various ways you may be
asked to format your work.
  
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