s/o writing organization, note card alternative

[elegantlion]

As a spin off of this thread, what are some alternatives to note card organization?

 

My ds has a hard time with handwriting, and I'd like to allow him to type. However, I like the note card idea and want to try it with him this week.

 

I know we could print on index cards, but the whole set up and changing the printer could be very distracting to him.

 

Is there a template for index cards? Should I just make a table? Has anyone used Evernote for research notes?

[Mom22ns]

My kids are doing a research paper and using a note card alternative right now. I created a Pages document (on the Mac) that has 10 text boxes on a page. Two across, 5 down. They type in the notes on their laptop or ipad, then when they are finished taking notes (that was officially today), then we printed all the pages, then cut them into individual "note cards" They are busy organizing the cards as I type.

 

My ds has dysgraphia. Writing note cards is not a reasonable alternative for him. This allows them to use the same organization technique, but type everything on the computer. So far it has been a big hit here! If you are a Mac person and want my template let me know. I'm sure you could do the same thing in your choice of PC programs, I just don't bother anymore.

[Nan in Mass]

I had mine take notes in word, print them out, snip them up, and rearrange them on the floor. He did it once and then just switched to rearranging with ctrl c/ctrl v. I still think if he were doing anything large, he would need to see it all together (snipping and floor) but for something small this worked. The advantage is that you only have to type quotes and works cited lists once. It does require lugging one's laptop around the library, but that isn't a problem for mine.

Nan

[elegantlion]

My kids are doing a research paper and using a note card alternative right now. I created a Pages document (on the Mac) that has 10 text boxes on a page. Two across, 5 down. They type in the notes on their laptop or ipad, then when they are finished taking notes (that was officially today), then we printed all the pages, then cut them into individual "note cards" They are busy organizing the cards as I type.

 

My ds has dysgraphia. Writing note cards is not a reasonable alternative for him. This allows them to use the same organization technique, but type everything on the computer. So far it has been a big hit here! If you are a Mac person and want my template let me know. I'm sure you could do the same thing in your choice of PC programs, I just don't bother anymore.

 

Thanks. My ds is saving for a Mac, but at this point we have PCs.

 

I had mine take notes in word, print them out, snip them up, and rearrange them on the floor. He did it once and then just switched to rearranging with ctrl c/ctrl v. I still think if he were doing anything large, he would need to see it all together (snipping and floor) but for something small this worked. The advantage is that you only have to type quotes and works cited lists once. It does require lugging one's laptop around the library, but that isn't a problem for mine.

Nan

 

That would appeal to ds. Thank you. He doesn't mind lugging his laptop either.

[Mom22ns]

I had mine take notes in word, print them out, snip them up, and rearrange them on the floor. He did it once and then just switched to rearranging with ctrl c/ctrl v. I still think if he were doing anything large, he would need to see it all together (snipping and floor) but for something small this worked. The advantage is that you only have to type quotes and works cited lists once. It does require lugging one's laptop around the library, but that isn't a problem for mine.

Nan

 

This is what we have done in the past. I don't think my kids did as well with organizing the notes this way as they did creating a more visual card, but that may just be my organizationally challenged household:glare:

[TechWife]

Check out NoodleTools. I am using it for a co-op class I am teaching. I have a classroom subscription, but you can get individual subscriptions as well. It organizes the bibliography, has a note card function (attaches them all to the resource, too) and an outline function (drag and drop note cards) & you can even write the paper in google docs if you want to do so. It is a great program!

[elegantlion]

This is what we have done in the past. I don't think my kids did as well with organizing the notes this way as they did creating a more visual card, but that may just be my organizationally challenged household:glare:

 

Maybe I could get some colored paper? We generally only have black ink, otherwise he could print in color.

 

Check out NoodleTools. I am using it for a co-op class I am teaching. I have a classroom subscription, but you can get individual subscriptions as well. It organizes the bibliography, has a note card function (attaches them all to the resource, too) and an outline function (drag and drop note cards) & you can even write the paper in google docs if you want to do so. It is a great program!

 

Cool, he's very techy, I'll look into that.

[elegantlion]

I just wanted to update how we're doing today. He opted to use the computer . He made fact cards and a work cited card. He is now on his second resource, after almost two hours. :001_huh:

 

I want to thank all of you who have gone before us. You've shown me the importance of taking the time to build the skills. Normally I would be pulling my hair out because it's taken him two hours to pull information from one resource. :lol: We've had our share of distractions today as well, but two hours!? :svengo:

 

I swear I couldn't climb this hill without y'all.

[Nan in Mass]

Ah yes. These things seem to take absolutely forever at first. And there is that vicious circle of it taking forever to write one paper so you don't get to do many papers so you don't get better at it because you haven't done many papers. I think it was Swimmermom who had contests to see if her children could find a piece of information in a book. At first she picked easy things but then progressed to more random small bits of information. I keep meaning to do that. One of mine couldn't read fast, so anything involving getting information out of a source took forever because he had to slowly read the whole thing. We worked on scanning for a word on a page, but he never really got good at it.

Nan

[elegantlion]

Ah yes. These things seem to take absolutely forever at first. And there is that vicious circle of it taking forever to write one paper so you don't get to do many papers so you don't get better at it because you haven't done many papers. I think it was Swimmermom who had contests to see if her children could find a piece of information in a book. At first she picked easy things but then progressed to more random small bits of information. I keep meaning to do that. One of mine couldn't read fast, so anything involving getting information out of a source took forever because he had to slowly read the whole thing. We worked on scanning for a word on a page, but he never really got good at it.

Nan

 

He ended up spending 3 1/2 hours getting information from two sources. He make a cite card for each source and ended up with 7 facts/thoughts. He was stretched today, as was my patience.

 

Maybe I'll make it a contest, he could go for that.

[Corraleno]

Thanks. My ds is saving for a Mac, but at this point we have PCs.

Once he gets his Mac, Scrivener is a fantastic program for this sort of thing, because you can make virtual index cards (that look exactly like real index cards), reorganize them on a virtual corkboard, convert them to text, etc., without having to print, cut, paste, etc.

 

Jackie

[JennyD]

Once he gets his Mac, Scrivener is a fantastic program for this sort of thing, because you can make virtual index cards (that look exactly like real index cards), reorganize them on a virtual corkboard, convert them to text, etc., without having to print, cut, paste, etc.

 

Jackie

 

Wow. I don't have a high schooler, but this program looks amazing. Thanks for the link.

[Elinor Everywhere]

Once he gets his Mac, Scrivener is a fantastic program for this sort of thing, because you can make virtual index cards (that look exactly like real index cards), reorganize them on a virtual corkboard, convert them to text, etc., without having to print, cut, paste, etc.

 

Jackie

 

Oooo, looking at that website makes me wish my daughter had a Mac laptop instead of a Toshiba. But not enough to switch with her....:lol:

[elegantlion]

Once he gets his Mac, Scrivener is a fantastic program for this sort of thing, because you can make virtual index cards (that look exactly like real index cards), reorganize them on a virtual corkboard, convert them to text, etc., without having to print, cut, paste, etc.

 

Jackie

 

He will love that, thank you, Jackie!

 

Oh, it looks like they are doing a windows beta. http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/

Edited October 18, 2011 by elegantlion

[Elinor Everywhere]

 

Oh, it looks like they are doing a windows beta. http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/

 

Yay! Thanks! :hurray:

[Nan in Mass]

How big are the sources? My son, the only one still homeschooling, is considerably older (11th) and still struggles with the same thing. His French history book (eighth grade level) is teaching him to do it by laying out three or four short documents on a subject like slave rebellions (a picture, a map, or about three inches of a column of text that is a quote from someone) and asking him to make a table with labels across the top for the source down and things he could extract from the source (like date, people involved, type of rebellion, successful/not successful). He fills in the grid and writes from that with a paragraph for each source.

 

It is a very controled, contrived situation but my son is finding it hard to do. The text presents some documents and asks some questions designed to make him look closely at the document. He doesn't need those - he already does this without any problem. They are just who, what, where questions. I usually have him copy one of the answers out in order to improve his French wording, though. If it is a passage of text, I have him narrate it back to me in English. Then he does the brief writing assignment if he isn't rewriting a previous assignment.

 

The whole thing is teaching me the value of TWTM fundamental skills. My son's French is about where his English was when he was 3 but with a ton more grammatical mistakes and the addition of any longer words that are the same in English (like democracy) and a few others. He was very well-spoken at three despite not talking until 2. The upshot is that for the first time, I can see how essential those WTM fundamentals are if one is not naturally gifted at one's first language. Copywork. Narration. Grammar. Vocabulary. We work on all of those. Plus we work on putting it all together doing what we are doing with the history book. If my own French were better, he would have learned French the same way that he learned English (being bright at that sort of thing) by immersion, but it isn't, and so my son has to struggle through doing it the hard way. It has shown me the power of that hard way, though. These skills were developed to teach a whole lot of regional dialect speakers standard English (or whatever) and teach them academic skills from scratch, since many were coming from an environment that did not involve much reading and writing. For the ones who had a head start in the academics and were coming from homes which had libraries, this produced scholars. For the most of rest, it produced students who were able to read and write standard English. When I first ran across TWTM, it looked to me like it was designed to produce lawyers and politicians, people whose skills with English were way beyond what my engineering, fairly non-academic family aspires to. Well, if you took my engineers and put them through TWTM properly, you would not get lawyers LOL. I had to try it before I could see that GRIN. Fortunately, TWTM seemed to fit our family so well that I did do some of those fundamental skills, even if I didn't do as many as I should have of some of them. (I still don't think it hurt my children not to do grammar every year. My children were born fairly articulate and they are never going to have to do much more than basic technical writing at work.)

 

Hmm... that was quite a digression. Sorry. I just have been thinking about it a lot as I make my 11th grader narrate and copy sentences in French and drag him through a grammar book.

 

Nan

[Nan in Mass]

You know, organizing one's notes by writing them on separate note cards is not an accurate way of representing the information. I think this causes problems. It would be more accurate to take a giant piece of paper (or a white board) and write each bit of information on it and then connect it to all the related bits of information with lines labeled with what the connection is. Even better would be to do this in 3D. An absolute ton of information gets lost when you only write your information on notecards and you are unable to build your structure along with your information. When you write anything longer than a paragraph the whole process usually is pretty cyclical - one finds some information, tries an organization, sees that one needs more information about this bit, finds that information, sees that a different organization would work better, goes and finds information to fill in the new gaps created, etc.

 

Nan

[1Togo]

Though more simple since it's for elmentary/middle school level reports, IEW teaches a good way to work with multiple sources. First, the student picks a simple topic, an animal for instance, and reads several books on the animal, listing subtopics like habitat, mating, diet, etc. Then, they choose one sub-topic; i.e. habitat, and create a key word outline on that sub-topic from each source. Finally, they write a fused outline with an orginial topic sentence by eliminating repeating facts or facts that do support their topic sentence. The work is done on a piece of paper folded into six blocks; i.e. three top blocks for the individual kwos, and the bottom center block for the fused outline. Each fused outline is used to write a paragraph. Transition, etc. are added when all the paragraphs are put together. The IEW Tips disc has the instructions. The student works with main topics that are increasingly more complex - animals, famous people, countries, events, ideas, etc. It's a good method for teaching the foundational skills needed in more complex research.

Edited October 18, 2011 by 1Togo

[elegantlion]

How big are the sources? My son, the only one still homeschooling, is considerably older (11th) and still struggles with the same thing. His French history book (eighth grade level) is teaching him to do it by laying out three or four short documents on a subject like slave rebellions (a picture, a map, or about three inches of a column of text that is a quote from someone) and asking him to make a table with labels across the top for the source down and things he could extract from the source (like date, people involved, type of rebellion, successful/not successful). He fills in the grid and writes from that with a paragraph for each source.

 

 

 

The resources were reading a few sections out of two books, maybe a total of ten pages max. It sparked some good discussion. He has issues trying to figure out what is relevant. We talked about audience, as I think that may be part of his issue.

 

I also printed off the WWS sample and will start that next week. It gives some samples of what information you might pull out to discuss a historical figure.

 

I downloaded the trial of the program Jackie recommended, I like the corkboard idea. That way of organizing might appeal to him. This is a quirky kid. He doesn't learn in a linear fashion. Writing seems to be one of the subjects he wants served like scrambled eggs, mixed up, hot off the oven, served backward with a side of bacon....weird analogy, I know, I haven't eaten breakfast yet. Plus ds likes everything served with a side of bacon :lol:

 

I have two more resources, I think we'll read through one together today and see how he does.

Edited October 18, 2011 by elegantlion

[elegantlion]

You know, organizing one's notes by writing them on separate note cards is not an accurate way of representing the information. I think this causes problems. It would be more accurate to take a giant piece of paper (or a white board) and write each bit of information on it and then connect it to all the related bits of information with lines labeled with what the connection is. Even better would be to do this in 3D. An absolute ton of information gets lost when you only write your information on notecards and you are unable to build your structure along with your information. When you write anything longer than a paragraph the whole process usually is pretty cyclical - one finds some information, tries an organization, sees that one needs more information about this bit, finds that information, sees that a different organization would work better, goes and finds information to fill in the new gaps created, etc.

 

Nan

 

I do have some giant paper, we can try that way as well.

 

Though more simple since it's for elmentary/middle school level reports, IEW teaches a good way to work with multiple sources. First, the student picks a simple topic, an animal for instance, and reads several books on the animal, listing subtopics like habitat, mating, diet, etc. Then, they choose one sub-topic; i.e. habitat, and create a key word outline on that sub-topic from each source. Finally, they write a fused outline with an orginial topic sentence by eliminating repeating facts or facts that do support their topic sentence. The work is done on a piece of paper folded into six blocks; i.e. three top blocks for the individual kwos, and the bottom center block for the fused outline. Each fused outline is used to write a paragraph. Transition, etc. are added when all the paragraphs are put together. The IEW Tips disc has the instructions. The student works with main topics that are increasingly more complex - animals, famous people, countries, events, ideas, etc. It's a good method for teaching the foundational skills needed in more complex research.

 

I might try a modified version of this. Thanks.

[Jane in NC]

One lesson that my stubborn son had a tough time learning is that sticky notes are your friend. Even if he did not use notecards, the use of stickies in books makes backtracking so much easier!

 

Notecards did not really work for me. I am a "big picture" sort of person. When I am serious about any endeavor, I pull out large sheets of graph paper and make non-linear idea maps. My supply of graph paper includes 11" x 17" and 17" x 22" sizes. Back in my student days, I used those big sheets of computer paper from recycle bins (panels separated by perforations).

 

Given that the OP's son has a tough time with handwriting, my "big picture" idea may not work but I thought I'd toss it out as an alternate possibility.

[Jane in NC]

You know, organizing one's notes by writing them on separate note cards is not an accurate way of representing the information. I think this causes problems. It would be more accurate to take a giant piece of paper (or a white board) and write each bit of information on it and then connect it to all the related bits of information with lines labeled with what the connection is.

 

Nan and I think alike!

[chepyl]

You know, organizing one's notes by writing them on separate note cards is not an accurate way of representing the information. I think this causes problems. It would be more accurate to take a giant piece of paper (or a white board) and write each bit of information on it and then connect it to all the related bits of information with lines labeled with what the connection is. Even better would be to do this in 3D. An absolute ton of information gets lost when you only write your information on notecards and you are unable to build your structure along with your information. When you write anything longer than a paragraph the whole process usually is pretty cyclical - one finds some information, tries an organization, sees that one needs more information about this bit, finds that information, sees that a different organization would work better, goes and finds information to fill in the new gaps created, etc.

 

Nan

 

This is why you do notecards. You write your info (full sentence/paragraph, quote or paraphrase, or just a reminder note) with the source name and page, as well as a key word (s). Then you organize by keyword. You can build your outline before or after making the cards. You put the cards on order based on key words and the outline. Flip through, reorganize, get more info, flip, reorganize, etc. Then you type the paper. It is actually a very efficient method for organizing thoughts. It works for visual and kinestetic learners. As I said in the other thread, after practice, I could start with a pile of sources and a narrow topic and have a 10 page trough draft in 2-3 hours. If I had all the sources at home, I could get to a final draft in 4. It tales practice.

 

I think it is great that there are virtual note card programs. That would make the process more efficient for some people. I, however, needed to hold the notecards in my hand and cannot read at a table. I always read on the couch, floor.....notecards are faster for me.

 

If you are looking for an alternative, I think office one note would be great! You can type notes anywhere on the page. Just click and type and you automatically get a new text box. Then you just slide the boxes around and convert to word. You would need to do your bibliography first and assign a number to each source so that the sources could be labeled in the boxes in one note. (That is a huge benefit of the notecard system, it make proper citation easier.)

 

There is a learning curve with a research paper. Kids have to learn how to research, how to find information to back up their thesis, how to organize the information, and much more. When they taught the notecards method, it took a semester. We had many steps:

Pick a topic

Find sources, make bibliography cards

We turned in 10-20 cards a week for a few weeks (est. 5-7 for one typed page.)

Then we stated our thesis and outlined our paper

Organized cards

Turned in rough draft

Made revisions and additions for second draft

Final draft

 

It took a couple of.months from start to finish. It was in college when I got faster. In high school, you learn the steps and master the process, it will be slow for the first few papers, break it down into chunks - x number of cards per week, one source per day, something to keep him from working 4 hours a day. It is okay if it takes a month or more to finish his forst paper, he is learning to research and compile his thoughts with relevant supporting facts.

[elegantlion]

One lesson that my stubborn son had a tough time learning is that sticky notes are your friend. Even if he did not use notecards, the use of stickies in books makes backtracking so much easier!

 

Notecards did not really work for me. I am a "big picture" sort of person. When I am serious about any endeavor, I pull out large sheets of graph paper and make non-linear idea maps. My supply of graph paper includes 11" x 17" and 17" x 22" sizes. Back in my student days, I used those big sheets of computer paper from recycle bins (panels separated by perforations).

 

Given that the OP's son has a tough time with handwriting, my "big picture" idea may not work but I thought I'd toss it out as an alternate possibility.

 

This gives me some ideas. We could still use the large paper to help organize his typed notecards.

[elegantlion]

This is why you do notecards. You write your info (full sentence/paragraph, quote or paraphrase, or just a reminder note) with the source name and page, as well as a key word (s). Then you organize by keyword. You can build your outline before or after making the cards. You put the cards on order based on key words and the outline. Flip through, reorganize, get more info, flip, reorganize, etc. Then you type the paper. It is actually a very efficient method for organizing thoughts. It works for visual and kinestetic learners. As I said in the other thread, after practice, I could start with a pile of sources and a narrow topic and have a 10 page trough draft in 2-3 hours. If I had all the sources at home, I could get to a final draft in 4. It tales practice.

 

I think it is great that there are virtual note card programs. That would make the process more efficient for some people. I, however, needed to hold the notecards in my hand and cannot read at a table. I always read on the couch, floor.....notecards are faster for me.

 

If you are looking for an alternative, I think office one note would be great! You can type notes anywhere on the page. Just click and type and you automatically get a new text box. Then you just slide the boxes around and convert to word. You would need to do your bibliography first and assign a number to each source so that the sources could be labeled in the boxes in one note. (That is a huge benefit of the notecard system, it make proper citation easier.)

 

There is a learning curve with a research paper. Kids have to learn how to research, how to find information to back up their thesis, how to organize the information, and much more. When they taught the notecards method, it took a semester. We had many steps:

 

I had the trial of OneNote and liked it, especially the aspect of writing anywhere on the page.

 

He's a very beginning of the learning curve, maybe pre-learning curve, but he doesn't learn in a traditional way. He's very big picture oriented, stubborn, and has to know the WHY of anything before applying effort. I did bring up the 10-20 page requirements down the road. :lol:

 

This is the kid that decided a few weeks ago he wanted to read about string theory. I did convince him we needed to back up and get a better understanding of Einstein and some physics before we tried. That wasn't on the agenda this year, but now we're reading Simply Einstein together and loving it.

[Candid]

Evernote maybe the way to go. http://www.evernote.com/ is a free note taking program available across platforms. He can use the camera of a cell phone to capture quotes in a book he wants to use. Using tags and notebooks to organize these he can shuffle to his heart's content and if need be print them all out.

 

Here's some blog posts that will help get him started:

http://blog.evernote.com/2011/02/11/evernote-for-students-the-ultimate-research-tool-education-series/

http://blog.evernote.com/2011/09/01/student-ryan-kessler-transformed-his-workflow-raised-his-gpa-and-left-his-textbooks-at-home-back-to-school-series/

[elegantlion]

Evernote maybe the way to go. http://www.evernote.com/ is a free note taking program available across platforms. He can use the camera of a cell phone to capture quotes in a book he wants to use. Using tags and notebooks to organize these he can shuffle to his heart's content and if need be print them all out.

 

Here's some blog posts that will help get him started:

http://blog.evernote.com/2011/02/11/evernote-for-students-the-ultimate-research-tool-education-series/

http://blog.evernote.com/2011/09/01/student-ryan-kessler-transformed-his-workflow-raised-his-gpa-and-left-his-textbooks-at-home-back-to-school-series/

 

I have evernote and he downloaded it yesterday. I like it for my purposes, and free fits out budget right now. I'll check out the blogs too, thanks.

[Nan in Mass]

Yes, but the connections between the cards get lost. Sometimes you want them to be lost because you are planning on reestablishing the connections elsewhere, but sometimes you don't. And besides, I think one of the things that baffled my children was the loss of those connections. They kept trying to preserve the connections with the notecards, causing them to put too much on the notecards. Maybe it has to do with where in the process one establishes the connections? (This is sounding silly, too theoretical, but I can't think how else to describe it.) If one wants to record the connections that one sees at the time that one copies the quote or states the fact, then one does better with a giant piece of paper, but if one is willing to write down just the facts or quotes and establish the connections later, then one does fine with notecards. My cloud child is a sideways thinker. He does very nicely with an outline, and makes outlines easily, but early in the writing process he needs a more amorphous recording system. My youngest, even though he is wired more like a typical engineer, also resists losing those connections. Both of them can write a simple report on facts about dogs with no problem. It is when you get to trying to deal with more complex thoughts that the problems arise.

 

Hmm... this is leading me to think some more about how to help my son with his papers.

 

Nan

[Nan in Mass]

I used those, too! For awhile my husband brought home large drawings for scrap paper. They are on lovely white paper, blank on one side. We use them for everything from wrapping paper to making patterns to making rough drafts. Now we have white boards. My younger two adore white boards, the bigger the better. Youngest wants to have whiteboard rooms in his house when he grows up, and whiteboard tables and counters. We use those little ones meant for messages on doors as slates.

 

Nan

[chepyl]

Yes, but the connections between the cards get lost. Sometimes you want them to be lost because you are planning on reestablishing the connections elsewhere, but sometimes you don't. And besides, I think one of the things that baffled my children was the loss of those connections. They kept trying to preserve the connections with the notecards, causing them to put too much on the notecards. Maybe it has to do with where in the process one establishes the connections? (This is sounding silly, too theoretical, but I can't think how else to describe it.) If one wants to record the connections that one sees at the time that one copies the quote or states the fact, then one does better with a giant piece of paper, but if one is willing to write down just the facts or quotes and establish the connections later, then one does fine with notecards. My cloud child is a sideways thinker. He does very nicely with an outline, and makes outlines easily, but early in the writing process he needs a more amorphous recording system. My youngest, even though he is wired more like a typical engineer, also resists losing those connections. Both of them can write a simple report on facts about dogs with no problem. It is when you get to trying to deal with more complex thoughts that the problems arise.

 

Hmm... this is leading me to think some more about how to help my son with his papers.

 

Nan

 

I guess that's the difference, I research before an outline amd my thesis definitely changes through research. I pick my topic....dogs....read a book and note facts and quotes I enjoy and sticky note things I may come back to. My key words are general - fur, food, training. Once I have researched I know what I have to support my thesis and if I need to change it. Then I make the connections between the cards. I usually end up dropout.g a few cards and going back to my sticky notes at that point. I think notes on paper with li.es between them would drive me nuts. ;)

 

It is important to know a child's learning style and adapt a research method that works for them.

[Nan in Mass]

You are right about that. And I do like notecards. I make my children use them. But I found that the giant piece of paper worked better at some stages. Thank you for explaining how long everything takes at the beginning and how that isn't the end.

: )

Nan

[MicheleinMN]

:lurk5:

[Bluegoat]

You know, organizing one's notes by writing them on separate note cards is not an accurate way of representing the information. I think this causes problems. It would be more accurate to take a giant piece of paper (or a white board) and write each bit of information on it and then connect it to all the related bits of information with lines labeled with what the connection is. Even better would be to do this in 3D. An absolute ton of information gets lost when you only write your information on notecards and you are unable to build your structure along with your information. When you write anything longer than a paragraph the whole process usually is pretty cyclical - one finds some information, tries an organization, sees that one needs more information about this bit, finds that information, sees that a different organization would work better, goes and finds information to fill in the new gaps created, etc.

 

Nan

 

Really though the student should have an outline written before he ever begins to take notes. That is the structure, and that is how he directs his research efficiently. If he doesn't do that before he starts research will be all over the place and take forever.

 

The notes on cards should be referenced to the otline. But the advantage of the cards is that you can then lay them out and move them into other configurations. Once you do that you see where you need to change the outline, or have gaps, or whatever, and you can re-do you outline and redirect your research as required.

 

If it's all on one big sheet, you have to redraw the whole thing to change it around.

[rieshy]

Once he gets his Mac, Scrivener is a fantastic program for this sort of thing, because you can make virtual index cards (that look exactly like real index cards), reorganize them on a virtual corkboard, convert them to text, etc., without having to print, cut, paste, etc.

 

Jackie

 

This is exactly why I hang out on these boards. This link looks great!

[Nan in Mass]

But how can you write an outline until you see what sort of information is available? I think maybe we are talking about different parts of the writing process? Maybe? The way I would use the giant piece of paper is to put in lots of the connections. The resulting structure isn't a picture of that particular paper, but of the information I have on the subject. As I gathered information, I would begin to have some idea of how best to organize it. I usually do start with some sort of idea of what sort of information I would need either to explain something or to prove a thesis, but it is usually so simple that it is usually just a list of possible things to include, not an outline. Once I have a bunch of information collected, I can start playing with the best way to present that information, make an outline, and write.

 

For example, if I am writing about dogs and I find some information about different types of brushes, in my paper I might want to put each type of brush under the section for its use, like shedding, detangling, removing mud, or doing something nice for your dog. Or I might want to put all the different types of brushes together in a section about brushes. If I am putting the information on a piece of paper, I can show both those possibilities together.

 

I certainly agree that it isn't very efficient, but I don't seem to be able to be efficient when I am writing, at least at the beginning. Maybe it depends on what sort of writing you are doing?

 

Nan