Weegy: The notes you gather in preparation for writing will normally provide detailed evidence to back up any arguments you wish to make. They might also be used as illustrative material. [ They might include such things as the quotations and page references you plan to use in an essay. Your ultimate objective in planning will be to produce a one or two page outline of the topics you intend to cover.
3. Be prepared for the fact that you might take many more notes than you will ever use. This is perfectly normal. At the note-taking stage you might not be sure exactly what evidence you will need. In addition, the information-gathering stage should also be one of digesting and refining your ideas.
4. Don’t feel disappointed if you only use a quarter or even a tenth of your materials. The proportion you finally use might vary from one subject to another, as well as depending on your own particular writing strategy. Just because some material is not used, don’t imagine that your efforts have been wasted.
5. When taking notes from any source, keep in mind that you are attempting to make a compressed and accurate record of information, other people’s opinions, and possibly your own observations on the subject in question.
6. Your objective whilst taking the notes is to distinguish the more important from the less important points being made. Record the main issues, not the details. You might write down a few words of the original if you think they may be used in a quotation. Keep these extracts as short as possible unless you will be discussing a longer passage in some detail.
7. Don’t try to write down every word of a lecture – or copy out long extracts from books. One of the important features of note-taking is that you are making a digest of the originals, and translating the information into your own words.
8. Some people take so many notes that they don’t know which to use when it’s time to do the writing. They feel that they are drowning in a sea of ...
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