This document provides guidance on effective study skills such as note taking, referencing, and avoiding plagiarism. It discusses preferred note taking approaches for different reading situations and emphasizes the importance of properly citing sources. The goals of the workshop are to help students become aware of effective learning strategies, practice sharing ideas, and understand referencing and plagiarism. Exercises are included to discuss note taking preferences and strategies for lectures.

1. Workshop 2: Selective and Wider
Reading; Note Taking Formats;
Referencing and Plagiarism
Michelle Paul
Study Skills Tutor
Student Support Office
October 2007
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2. Underlying Principles
 Each of us have techniques that we know work
well for us as learners;
 Few approaches to study can be considered ‘right’
or ‘wrong’.
 (Caveat re plagiarism– some practices can cause
problems)
 We can usually improve our practice with some
reflection.
 We learn more when we are actively involved and
participating.
 As a result, this is designed to be interactive and
also provide important information.
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3. Goals for Today:
Each person will…
 Become more aware of which strategies
work well for him/her
 Get some new ideas
 Practice sharing their ideas with
individuals and the group
 Find out where to learn more
 Understand importance of proper
referencing.
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4. Opening Exercise (10 min): Explain to
a Partner + Choose an item to report
 What are your preferred approaches to
reading and note taking (3 situations)
 1. When you are reading an assigned course
text to develop a basic understanding
 2. When you are reviewing a source to
determine if it is useful for a research paper
 3. When you are reading a difficult text that
you have decided is very useful for your
research paper?
 Why are these approaches useful to you?
 Choose one approach to share with whole
group.
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5. Report out and summarise:
Students’ preferred approaches to
note taking
3. Reading assigned texts for initial
understanding?
4. Selecting additional sources?
5. Reading for deeper understanding?
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6. Which of these approaches were
mentioned ….
 Start with most basic texts– ask tutor
 Underlining/highlighting –selectively!
(Less active?)
 Annotating the text (own copy)
 Writing down brief words/phrases and page
numbers of important ideas
 Skimming headings, introductions, conclusions
to identify most relevant sections
 Reading with specific questions in mind
 Stopping periodically to check recall,
paraphrase, answer questions, discuss with a
friend, write own responses
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7. When researching for an essay, you
want notes that provide…
 A record of where you found each piece of
information, each idea (complete
bibliographic information, including page
number)
 A record of your developing ideas
 A way of coding quotations/paraphrases
AND your own thoughts and ideas in
response to reading (Colours? Separate
pages?)
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8. What to write in your notes (for essay):
Brief notes at first
http://
www.utoronto.ca/writing/notes.html
 You need to do some thinking about what you are looking for
before writing a lot of notes.
 Taking too many notes RECORDING WHAT YOU READ can leave
with you with a sea of material of questionable relevance.
 A list of topic headings under which your information can
(eventually) be grouped
 Either notes from separate sources under these
 Or notes from one source, labeled with these headings
 One side of paper only!
 Some kind of brief record (e.g., key word and page) of each of
your readings will allow you to return later to most useful
passages.
 Perhaps also a journal of your developing ideas about the
information…
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9. Reading Journal
 Keeping a journal of YOUR OWN
THOUGHTS about what you read
provides useful material IN YOUR
OWN WORDS that you can develop
later in your essays.
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10. Reading Journals
 “Notes should be a safe zone where you
can explore your own uncertainties,
different readings of the text, implications
of the author’s position, and questions
these raise in your own mind. They
shouldn’t merely record the results of
your understanding, but should become
part of the process of understanding.’
 http://
www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/not
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11. One method of taking notes during
online library research
 Save database keyword searches
(includes full bibliographic
information)
 Email to yourself, print out
 Annotate with own comments
 http://www.jstor.org
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12. Choosing resources for wider reading
 Browse books in library catalogue/shelves
 Authors of assigned readings
 Bibliographies in assigned readings
 Bibliographies in ‘good’ books and articles
 Library subject guides
 Databases in your field
 Some departments have links for useful web sites in
your own field
 NOT Wikipedia, NOT Google as a first resort
http://www.googlescholar.com/ is an academic search
engine)
 Intute = web tutorial (many departments offer a link)
 http://www.intute.ac.uk
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13. Referencing and plagiarism
 In brief, you must cite sources you
 Direct quotations
 Paraphrase of information
 You must credit the author both for
ideas and for ways of saying things
(direct quotations)
 Give page number of information
cited
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14. One basic note taking approach to
avoid plagiarism
 Note page and key words only
 For more extensive notes on WHAT THE TEXT SAYS
 Read a passage of at least a page or section
 Set the book aside. FROM MEMORY,
 Write key ideas
 Add citation to author
 Go back and reread to understand the bits on which you
are hazy.
 Amend your summary, AGAIN FROM MEMORY.
 Use these notes to write your essay
 Have a system of distinguishing own ideas and material
from sources, in your notes (colors, parts of page,
reading journal for own ideas, cross referenced to
summary notes)
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15. Avoiding plagiarism through good note
taking
 Sociology Department (Rowena
Macaulay): ‘Avoiding
Plagiarism’. On good note
taking practices.
http://www.essex.ac.uk/sociology/resour
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16. More on referencing and plagiarism
 Referencing site on mySkills
http://www.essex.ac.uk/myskills/skills/re
 University plagiarism web site:
http://www.essex.ac.uk/plagiarism/
 Univ Essex library web sites:
http://
libwww.essex.ac.uk/citation.htm
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17. More on referencing and avoiding
plagiarism
 Univ. Essex Key Skills Online
http://www2.essex.ac.uk/essay-writing/
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18. To recap: Avoid
 Copying large chunks of text
 Line-by-line paraphrasing
(‘plagiarism by thesaurus’)
 Starting to writing essay with text
book open the night before essay is
due.
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19. Exercise 2: Note taking in lectures
Explain to a partner:
How do you prefer to take notes in
lectures?
Why?
How do you prepare for note taking in
lectures?
How do you use your notes later?
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20. Summarise responses to Exercise 2:
Taking notes in lectures
 Also, were the following points
made?
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21. Taking notes in lectures:
Preparing before
 Write questions at top, based on
previous lectures and readings,
comments in syllabus for the week
 Review the previous week’s lecture
before new week
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22. Taking notes in lectures…
During the lecture
 Concentrate on main points– don’t
worry about getting down all details.
 Use key words and short sentences.
 If you miss a statement, write key
words, skip a few spaces, and get the
information later. (With ring binders,
you can add sheets with related notes
later.)
 If a speaker gets sidetracked, you may
be able to go back and add further
information.
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23. Taking lecture notes: after the lecture
 Shortly after making your notes, go
back and rework (not redo) your
notes by adding extra points and
spelling out unclear items.
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24. Taking notes in lectures: Organising
 Create a master set of notes
 Write date and title of lecture at top
 Number pages
 Have a uniform system of punctuation and
abbreviation that will make sense to you.
 Possibly list key terms in the margin or make a
summary of the contents of the page of notes.
 Cross reading notes and lecture notes.
 Cross reference the various lectures.
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25. Taking notes: Styles of note taking
 Linear notes– following the lecturer’s outline
and using their headings
 Mind maps or spider diagrams
http://www.consumingexperience.com/2006/12/comp
 Cornell system
http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/Departments/enr
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26. Goals for all note taking:
Your notes will provide…
 A good master set of information. That
you can review regularly to achieve
lasting memory.
 A record of how your understanding of
the topic has developed.
 A complete record of where you
learned everything, so you can cite
your sources accurately.
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