Information Literacy and Research Skills: Organizing Your Information

This is not your bibliography.  Rather, it is a list of all your resources. It doesn't matter if you end up using all of these sources in your work -its a lot easier to go back and delete sources rather than trying to find them again, especially on the Internet where the information is not stable.

There are many places to store your research, so use what works best for you. Evernote, Google Scholar, EBSCO folders, NoodleTools, a Word document, or a good old fashioned handwritten page lets you go back and look at those sources again.

1. Your notes should either be a summary, a direct quote or a paraphrasing of the material being used. Use a system to denote the type of note being taken. e.g., S for summary, etc. Always putting a direct quote in "quotation marks" helps to prevent plagiarism later.
2. Your notes should support your research topic or thesis statement, define unfamiliar words, or provide background information on your topic. Sometimes a note will be nothing more than a lead to a better source.
3. Note the source being used and the page number/s from which the information is being taken for each note.
4. Use a consistent system for taking notes, whether you use notecards, a computer file, or something else. Use what works best for you!

Creation of an outline may be dependent on your professor's requirements. Read the assignment thoroughly to understand what you may, or may not, need to create!

Outlines provide you with the structure of your written work. They are a useful tool to organize large amounts of information and to gather your ideas together before you begin to write.

An outline will also help you to show the relationships between ideas that you think are comfortably tucked away in your head - until you begin to write, and then realize that you've either forgotten them.

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab has an excellent summary of the outlining process. Check it out for yourself at https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/developing_an_outline/how_to_outline.html

A draft should be as close to the final product as possible, with the understanding that you may need to alter your writing in light of finding a new source or based on suggestions that your professor may have to improve your work.