Turabian Ch.

4-5

The way a source is approached will have a direct effect on the overall wholes of
the report. Taking notes correctly and systematically from each source will help
formulate a solid hypothesis. At first, read the content generously in order to see the big
picture. Try to refrain from finding disagreements or to form any conclusions right away.
Now the second time through, read through the content more critically. Question whether
the source is sparking some creativity or if its just bland facts. You may also want to find
facts in the source were youll want to disprove them or find add to them in order to make
them more credible.
Create a note-taking template. The most prepared you can be before taking actual
notes will help when you search to those notes later. Use recognized label for each
section of your notes such as claim, data, and my questions. You may also want to use
parenthesis and brackets to distinguish certain parts of your notes. This type of note
taking will speed up your writing later on.
Knowing when to summarize, paraphrase, or quote will save time in the note
taking process. Its important now to overdue it, or else the result is a pile of information
that hinder effective writing. Watch out for unique quotes and make sure to capture them.
Also when summarizing, make sure not to plagiarize.
Planning the argument before the first draft is important. The ideal time to being
writing a first draft is once theres enough evidence to support a working hypothesis. The
work argument has gotten a negative connotation in todays general point of view; the
media industry has done a good job at this. But, its important to know what a research
argument is. A research argument resembles an amiable argument between friends, where
both through reasons and questioning try to reach a solution to a problem. Answering
questions a reader may have and having evident to back them up is what is called a
working hypothesis. Once that process is done, a working hypothesis can be translated
into a claim.
Once a claim is reached, its important to evaluate it. Is it interesting, or are you
simply starting something that from reading the title alone makes sense? Imagine
someone reading your title, what would be his or her response? If the response is
something alone the line of, well that makes sense, perhaps its not captivating enough.
If the response is really? How interesting. What makes you think so? now youve a
claim! When stating your claim, its also important to distinguish between reason and
evidence. Reason doesnt need citation, but evidence does. One leads to the other, but the
skeptical reader wont credit a paper based solely on reasoning.