Organization

There is no one right way to organize the work you need to do for a research paper. Over time, it will be important to find a system that works for you and for the way your mind works. That being said, it is important to have a system of some kind in order to make this an efficient process. You are busy people with lots of things to do. While research projects can and should be fun and exciting adventures, you do not want them to consume your life. To avoid this, your goal should be to find a system that keeps you from wasting time or redoing work you have already done. For example, you may find a really cool piece of information in a source. What do you do now? Put a post it in the book? Highlight it? Write the information on a notecard? Type it onto a word document? Or think to yourself: "I will remember this piece of information in my head. No problem. I will remember where I got the piece of information so it will be no problem to find this piece of information later. It will be so easy. No need to note it down now. Nah. I'll definitely remember it in my head. I'm looking at it right now. How could I forget?"

Which method is going to keep you from having to spend a half an hour scouring through the book again to find the pearl or wisdom or the information you need to help write your paper and to do your citations (link to citations)?

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