Reading & Recording Information

1. Reading & Recording Information The Nuts and Bolts Activity of Research

2. Reading and Recording Information:Major Headings • Planning Your Reading. • Types of Reading. • Taking Effective Notes.

3. Planning Your Reading • Consult general sources first. • Encyclopedia Entries • Books with an overview • Probably NOT periodicals • Remember the Audience • General Periodical good for overview, current opinions, or recent developments • Scholarly Journals good for detailed studeis and recognized authorities on topic • Plan to read no more than one or two aspects at a time. • Try to stay in one place for an extended period of research.

4. Reading & Recording Information • Careful reading • Accurate note-taking • Thoughtful evaluation

5. PlanYour Reading Don’t Let Yourself be a the Mercy of Haphazard Reading

6. Use the following to place a work’s importance to you These tips assume a “Working Bibliography” • A Work’s title • Publication information • Author’s name • Source’s length

7. Dees, while admitting that it is impossible to evaluatea source fully before reading it, gives the following suggestions: • Review the working bibliography to consult generalsources first: magazine articles, histories, and other broad discussions. Develops an “overview.”

8. Plan your reading so that you do not examine more than one or two related aspects at a time. • .Helps organize note-taking • .Focus your thinking on the material • .Keep your research balanced • Organize your reading so that you will stay in one part of the library for a period of time.

9. Types of Reading Skimming and Close Reading

10. Skimming means looking only for. . . • key words • main ideas • sub-headings • illustrations

11. Skimming Books: Don’t Delve Deep Until You Know the Text You’ll Keep

12. In practice follow this pattern: • Start with the title, the complete title. • Consult the table of contents • Search the index • Read the preface or introduction • Check out the appendix or appendices: • additional material, maps, graphs etc.. • Check a book’s glossary • Check a book’s bibliography

13. Skimming Periodical Articles: Dees says this type is Easier (one can always hope)

14. When Skimming a magazine or journal article: • Article titles tend to be more specific than book titles. • Often include sub headings • Look for boldfaced headings • Subsections • Illustrations • Read the first sentence of each paragraph • Make note if the article seems worthwhile.

15. Close Reading Close reading requires careful attention to all the words and sentences in a selection to understand its full meaning. After you have skimmed a source and decided to read all or part of it closely, you read carefully to comprehend ideas and record information. While these two purposes can undoubtedly overlap, awareness of them as separate activities will help focus your note taking and organize your thinking as you read.

16. Read for Meaning • The thesis or Summary Statement • The Topic Sentence • Examples support the topic sentence • Transition word signals additional details (thus, therefore, however) • An implied Topic Sentence • In such cases as this the author feels the point of the paragraph is obvious and so the thesis is only suggested.

17. Taking Notes “Hey, Dr. Rearick! I wasn’t done with that slide!”

18. Note Format • Arrange not information in any way that is convenient and makes for easy reference • Consistency • Identify direct quotations • add your own commentary

19. Why Takes Notes? • Takes notes to record background information. • Take notes to summarize ideas supporting your preliminary thesis statement • Take notes on explanatory information such as histories and definitions • Take notes to record quotations, examples and anecdotes