Research Paper Note Taking?

[nancy in nj]

Hi Everyone,

My daughter is writing a research paper for her SO World History course and wants to take her notes electronically rather than writing them manually on index cards. She's used the research report function in MS Word to create her works cited page and prepare her outline.

Surely there must be a way within Word to produce electronic index cards categorized by her outline headings and linked to her sources from the works cited page. Isn't there? Please.....we can't find it.

If not, does anyone know if there is some type of word compatible plug-in type program I can buy to do this?

If we are expecting way to much from our software, how do your teens use word for note taking?

Thanks!

Nancy

[jennifermarie]

I'm not sure of a way to do this within Microsoft Word. A few friends of mine have used Microsoft Access for this. They'll create a table that lists all the references that they use with the citation info and give each one an ID number (you can just use 1,2,3). Then they will create another table that has the actual notes they took from each source, one note to a line, and they will again use that reference number so that when they actually write the paper and go to put a quote in, they can see that it comes from source 1, and can just link that information. I hope this made sense.

[choirfarm]

Does it have to be note card format??? I showed my students that way, but to me note cards never made sense. I had them title sheets of paper with each topic. For example, in my son's Bear Bryant paper he had three pieces of paper for the strength section of his paper. H e put perseverence on the top of one, toughness on another one, and compassion for his players on his third piece of paper. He wrote down notes, quotes that went under each section along with the page number and shortened name of the book. That is how I wrote all of my research papers. I never,ever used note cards. It was too easy for one individual card to get lost. So does she have to do note cards??

Christine

[Carmen_and_Company]

I followed the instructions in SWB's article in 4 parts, How to Write the Research Paper. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/writing-the-research-paper-part-i-preparation/ . At the end of each section, you can click to read the next part, excepting part IV, which I liked below.

part IV is located here: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/writing-the-reasearch-paper-part-iv-matters-of-style/


SWB recommends writing on slips of torn paper & placing in books as the student reads, and after the student formulates his thesis, he writes an outline, then uses a sheet of paper for each point from the outline to organize the notes taken on the slips of paper.

[KarenAnne]

We have not figured out all the ins and outs of the software "Inspiration," but it is supposed to allow for everything from brainstorming to organizing points to writing a paper. Maybe someone who has fully figured it out and uses it more than we do could say.

[nancy in nj]

Thanks, everyone. I'm surprised there isn't a way to do this within the research paper functionality in Word. The Access idea sounds like her best option, although I'm wondering whether she can just do the same thing using a Microsoft Word table.

The Inspiration software also looks great. It probably contains a lot more organizational prompts/maps than she needs at this point. She has already submitted her outline and did a great job organizing her outline for the fairly complex topic she has chosen (China's emergence as an economic superpower in the 21st Century).

She did use a method similar to that recommended by SWB. She underlined key passages that she plans to take notes on and used post-its to mark the pages.

Ok, now I am off to e-mail Bill Gates to complain about the shortcomings of Word's research paper functionality!

Thanks again!

Nancy