Researching and Organizing Your Paper
The Note Card System
When you are faced with starting a research paper, the most important part of researching and
beginning to write is ORGANIZING the information and your thoughts. If you are not
organized, it will take considerably more time to write the paper. To make it easy on yourself,
you can use an index card system as you gather information. With this method, you categorize
the information you find by topic. For each topic, you could have any number of cards from
several different sources. Later, as you write your paper, each card topic becomes a body
paragraph (supporting idea) in your paper.
Researching
As you find interesting facts about your topic during your research, you should write
them down. Each sentence or idea that you find should be paraphrased or
summarized, and written on a card. In order to keep your ideas in order, and to
remember where you found the ideas, there are four items that you should include on
the index card, as you will see below.
Sample Note Card:
1A
(source number and letter)
Main Idea of the Card (Slug)
The actual note goes here. The following are guidelines for note taking.
 Use a 4X6 index card for each note
 At the top of each card, write a brief heading that states the main idea of the note card (slug or card topic)
 In the upper right hand corner write the number of the corresponding source card and a letter to indicate which
note is taken from that source.
 At the bottom of each note card, indicate whether the information is a quotation, summary, paraphrase, or your
own idea.
 At the bottom of each note card, write the number of the page on which you found the information in the
source. You should list only one page number on your note card. If the information in the source carries over
to another page, begin a new note card for that note. You will need the page number for documentation when
your write your report. If your source has no page number, write the source type where you would put
the page number (internet, CD-ROM, etc.)
Paraphrase
p. 35
Another Sample Note Card:
1. The card topic (slug) is the title for the kind of information on the card. The card
topic is a name that you make up yourself. Think of it as the title, or main idea of the
card. After writing down the information, figure out how you could briefly categorize, or
title it. For example, if you are writing a paper on the life and works of the poet,
Langston Hughes, you may have cards with topics such as:






Hughes' upbringing
Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance
Hughes' influences
Hughes' poetry
Hughes' political beliefs
Hughes' influence on America
Although it may seem tedious to give each note card a topic name (or slug), it serves
two purposes:


It keeps you focused in your research. You will be less likely to write down
unnecessary information (facts that are not related to your topic) if you are
careful to write down the topic for every card.
It is necessary to have these topics once you begin organizing your research.
2. The source title is the name of the book, magazine, web cite, etc., in which you found the
information. In the previous example, the source was given a number, instead of writing out the
entire title. You could write out the title on each card, or simply list your sources on a separate
sheet of paper, like the example here. Number your sources on this list, and then use the numbers
on the note cards to specify which source provided which fact.
3. Item number three is the paraphrased information that you found. It is helpful to
paraphrase, or summarize, your research on the index cards while you are taking
notes. If you are consistent in paraphrasing at this stage, then you will be certain not to
accidentally plagiarize someone else's work. You will also have less work to do when
you are actually writing the paper.
4.
It is important to be accurate with the page numbers on your note cards, as you
will need them for citations throughout your research paper.
Start Organizing
Once you have written the information down on the note cards, you only need to go
back and organize your cards by topic. Group together all the cards that have the same
topic (i.e. all the cards titled: "Hughes' Poetry" should be together). When you finish,
you should have your cards in piles, one topic per pile. You can have any number of
piles and any number of cards in each pile. The length and detail of your paper will
determine how many piles and cards you have.
Your piles may look like:
Outline and Start Writing Once you have separated your cards into piles, each topic pile should
become a body paragraph in your paper. That is the key to this system. If every topic directly supports
your thesis statement, then each topic pile should become a supporting idea, body paragraph, or part of a
paragraph in your paper. But before you actually begin writing, you should make an outline of the order
you want to present these topics in your paper. (For help making an outline, see the English Works web
page on Pre-writing and Outlines). Once the outline is complete, use your note cards as guides and begin
writing. For further help on writing a research paper, refer to the English Works! web page Process of
Doing a Research Paper, Guide to Developing Thesis Statements, and/or Guide to Writing Introductions
and Conclusions.
Documenting Sources
PLAGIARISM
Documenting your research simply means identifying the source of your information. This includes any information
that you directly quoted, summarized, or paraphrased. If it is not your original idea, you must document the source.
You do not need to document what is considered common knowledge. For example, stating that George Washington
was our first president would be considered common knowledge and need not to be documented. However, failure
to document information taken from a source (not considered common knowledge) is plagiarism. Plagiarizing is
stealing and can result in failure. The most common cases of plagiarism result from students not understanding the
true nature of plagiarism. In the past, students may have copied articles out of encyclopedias for assignments, which
may have been practiced in younger grades; however, by the middle school level, this is considered plagiarism. You
should understand that you must document a source whenever you use someone else’s words or whenever you use
someone else’s original idea, even when you put that idea into your own words. You should also give credit to any
pictures used from a source.
PARENTHETICAL DOCUMENTATION
One of the most popular forms of documentation is taken from the Modern Language Association and is referred to
as “MLA Form.” The following information represents examples given in MLA form. If you need more information
that is not provided in this manual, consult the MLA Handbook. Parenthetical documentation is the newest approach
to documenting works within the text of a research paper. The parenthetical documentation replaces the numbering
system of footnotes and endnotes. Where sequential numbers were placed in research paper using
footnotes/endnotes, source information is now put in parentheses right after the information is given. Usually, the
author’s last name and the page numbers are sufficient to refer clearly to the list of works cited at the end of the
paper. The purpose of including parenthetical documentation after the quoted or paraphrased materials is so any
person reading the research paper can find the author and the page from which the direct quote or paraphrased idea
came. You will work from your source cards and note cards in order to document the author and the page number
for the information referenced.
USING PARENTHETICAL DOCUMENTATION
Parenthetical documentation is a simple way to identify your source within the text of your paper. At the end of the
reference, you simply put the last name of the author and the page number in parentheses. Ex. (Carter 17). If the
identity of the author is clear from what you have written, you may even omit the name (17). Follow these basic
rules:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Place parentheses after quotation marks but before the period.
Use no punctuation between the name and the page number.
Do not use “p.” before the page number.
If two authors in your works cited have the same last name, include first name.
If you have two books by the same author, add the title or a shortened version of the title.
If a book does not list an author, editor, or translator, use whatever will be used to identify it in your works
cited. This is usually the title.
7.
Internet—Usually, for a source from the internet, the page numbers should not be cited because the
pagination may vary in different printouts. If the paragraphs are numbered, you can write par.14 for
example.
If the work has stable pagination, such as an article in PDF format, include the page number.