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To every humanities/social studies undergrad out there trying to figure out how to take notes here's some advice from a grad student writing a dissertation w/ hundreds of sources 1/ #AcademicChatter #Undergrad #History #AcademicChatter
Download a note management app like Evernote (my personal fav) and a citation manager like Zotero (you're never too young). I like drafting bibliographies by hand to go over my work and I still use Zotero as a backup. It's worth trying. 2/
Make a new note/document for each source. I split sources into primary and secondary sources. I title each document PR or SR, then short title, author last name. For example SR, Care Work, Piepzna-Samarasinha (my current reading which is great) 3/
In the first line of the document, put the full bibliographical citation in APA, CMS, MLA, or whatever your discipline calls for. Below that line add the in text citation or footnote citation. Then when you're writing you can just copy paste from your doc (or use Zotero) 4/
Ar this point you'll want to open up Zotero and make sure the citation is there. You can either add by hand or export from a library website (which of course does not work for most primary resources, these you need to manually add) 5/
Skim the introduction and figure out tags. I use broad tags like social history, 19th century, medical history. You're curating an archive for yourself, so you want to be able to search tags to group similar items. Edit your tag list frequently, make sure you're using them 6/
Write out the other authors that this work is building from (lit review/historiography). Who influenced this work? What fields is the author engaging with? 7/
Now the hardest part - the authors argument. What is the thesis? What gap in knowledge are they trying to fill? What types of evidence are they using? The author should clearly lay this out in the introduction. 8/
When you're pinpointing the argument, use direct quotes. Note down the page number where the author explains their argument and their path forward. Now you can easily cite their main points in your own work when referencing them! 9/
At the college level you're often skimming rather than reading word for word. I always felt guilty doing this - don't! Your time is valuable, and on the other side of the writing process I know people won't hang onto my every word. That's ok! 10/
Learn to skim opening & closing sentences. Pull quotes that are evocative, ones that offer definitive claims that CANNOT be summed up using your own words. You should use quotes from secondary sources when you yourself can't paraphrase or discuss the content in footnotes. 11/
Choose your quotes wisely, don't feel like you need a hundred you'll never use them all! Take notes on the remainder of the book 12/
Write down final thoughts. Did the author convince you? Did they effectively argue their point? Are there any critiques? Write these while they're fresh in your mind 13/
Write out at least three authors you can connect this work to. If you had to start a conversation about this book, who else would you want in the convo? Hunt: check the syllabus, the prof had already paired readings that are complimentary for a reason. 14/
Save and back up your work. The ultimate goal is to be able to look at your notes and properly recall the argument of the book. You should be able to confidently talk about the books position in the field, and tie it to other works. 15/
Celebrate! Remember that you are curating a library for yourself. I wrote out notes by hand in undergrad and I look back and I'm sad at all the content I've lost bc that pace is not tenable. Or I wrote such long digital notes that I might as well reread the book 16/
Remember that the more efficient you are early on, the easier it will be to write final papers, craft bibliographies, and find gaps in the literature. Don't let your intellectual work go to waste! 17/
