When you do research, you might find a huge amount of information on a certain topic — probably much more than you could possibly use in a report of paragraph or essay length. Of course, by choosing your questions carefully and by using reliable sources, you will narrow the scope of your research a great deal. You also need to go through the information you find very thoughtfully so that you stay focused on your topic.

One way to improve your research is to take good notes from your sources. That will help you keep on track and ensure the information you choose is useful. When you take notes, you will find the key points that you want to include in your report and list them in points or short phrases. Key points can be found by looking through the sources for titles, headings, text that stands out (bold, italic, or underlined), as well as introductory and concluding sentences and paragraphs.

When you find the key points, choose from various ways to organize your notes to be sure you have all the information needed to fulfill the purpose of the report.

For example, you can make a web with the central idea in the middle and the supporting ideas around it.


Or, you may draw a picture to illustrate the main points of the research.

Or, you may list your key ideas and supporting points in point form.




Whatever you do, you want to be sure that you have all the information related to one main idea in the same place. NEVER just copy out the words — unless you intend to quote some sentence or short passage.