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Extracting useful information

You can extract the most important information from the sites you have printed and resources that you have gathered by taking notes. Use the note taking sheet for this.

Why taking notes is important:

1. Taking notes as you study will help you remember important points.
2. It is easier and more convenient to work from notes you have made rather than directly from four or five copies of
Web-pages.
3. Your notes will help you form a good outline for your assignment.

Hints on taking notes

Skimming helps taking notes.

1.Skimming is an important pre-requisite to taking notes.
2.Skimming is a way of finding out which sections of the information are worth noting.
3.Skimming gives you ideas of how to organise your notes.

The taking notes process:

1.Know why you are noting something. Know the sort of information you want. Ask yourself who, what, where, when,
how, and why. Use your ideas web to break the topic into main ideas. Write up your topic headings in a 6 cell grid or on
a notetaking sheet. This gives your taking notes a goal and prevents you wasting time noting irrelevant information.
2.Skim before you note.
3.Then read carefully, jotting down main points and important details according to your headings.

Hints

1.Jot down only main ideas and important details.
2.Order your notes. Use main headings and key-words and numerals or dots for different points. Underline the main points.
(See Note Taking Sheet )
3.Use just a word or a short phrase to express an idea’
4.Take notes in your own words. This will help you understand them later.
5.If you copy a sentence from a Web-page or book, put it in quotation marks.
6.Notes are for your own reference, so develop your own abreviations.
7.Do not bother to note things that are irrelevant to your topic. The author may have different reasons for including some
points.
8.When using printed Web pages or photocopied material that can be written on, highlight or underline key ideas and
cross out irrelevant material.
9.Make sure you record the source: author, date, title, place of publication and publisher of the material you used for your
notes. (See Note Taking Sheet ).

Summary:

Know why you are taking notes.
Skim, read and jot.