1.5: Note-Taking and Annotations

Note-Taking

Even if your teacher does not require you take notes, you should take notes in every college course you enroll in. Always remember to date and label your notes so that you remember what class and topic the notes were over.

The more you take notes, the more adept you will become, but remember that “good” note-taking does not mean writing down everything but focusing on the key points and takeaways from each lecture or class and writing down that information. Using a shorthand and developing a system of symbols will also help.

Finally, remember to look back at your notes once you have taken them. You should highlight key points and construct a summary at the bottom of your notes to help remember the information.

Annotating Texts

Chances are, you will be asked to annotate in this book at some point in your English class. When you annotate a text, you mark on it to note the main points, important supporting points, and evidence. You should also note your own reactions and connections to other course texts and ideas.

When you annotate a text, it is helpful if you know how you will use the text. If you are going to summarize the text, you will approach the text differently than if you are going to synthesize it.

Part II of this book, The Reader, is set up to help you annotate: it has questions before each essay to help you think about the essay and what ideas you might look for when reading.

If you find annotation scary, consider beginning by annotating in pencil or with post-it-notes. And remember, there is no right way to annotate. You will probably underline and make note of ideas that other people in your class don't find important, and that is fine. The key is that your annotations help you understand the text and write about it.

For more help with annotating texts and the reading cycle, see pages 84-95 in Chapter 6. See pages 185-190 for other ideas on annotation as well as a student example.

Annotation exercise: Read through the following excerpt from the blog “Playing by The Rules: Avoiding Plagiarism in Essay Writing” from Oxbridge Essays. Underline the main point and underline important supporting points or evidence. Note your reactions or short summaries in the margin. And please keep in mind that this was published in Britain, so the some of the spelling and punctuation might differ from what you generally see in American English.

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What constitutes plagiarism?

What exactly is plagiarism? To help us understand the answer to this question, let's look at the Cambridge Dictionary definition:

"Plagiarize (verb): to use another person's ideas or work and pretend that it is your own."

The key in this definition is "pretend". In all of your essay and dissertation writing at university level and above, you cannot attempt to pass off any words, phrases or specific authors' ideas off as your own.

But what kind of behaviour is and isn't allowed under general university regulations?

Let’s start with the obvious; you cannot just buy an essay and submit it wholly in its original form to your instructor. This is using someone else’s work and is outright cheating. You also shouldn’t have a friend write it for you, or copy parts of your friend’s assignment. Not only can this get you in trouble, but probably your friend as well. Plus, who is to say that your friend is a better writer than you anyway?

Let’s keep going. Did you also know that you can’t resubmit an assignment for one class that you previously submitted to another? That’s known as self-plagiarism and it’s also a big no-no.

Universities around the world take academic integrity very seriously. In fact there’s usually a code of conduct as a part of each university framework which each student should read. Plagiarism is one part of academic integrity, and it’s something that you, as a student, should take seriously too. It’s important to remember that the rules you had in secondary school may not apply and the rules you have in your home country may not apply. The rules aren’t that difficult once you know them, but you have to actually know them in the first place.

So, you might be asking, why should you care? Well, first of all, if you are caught plagiarizing, bad things can happen.

We’ll discuss the bad stuff first, before we work on how you can avoid it. At many universities, if you are suspected of an academic offense, which includes plagiarism, you first have to meet with your instructor. If you are found to have plagiarized, you could get a mark of zero or get referred to the Dean/Departmental Head for sanctions. For more serious issues there may be a tribunal and you could ultimately be dismissed from the school. Wouldn’t you rather be spending your time elsewhere, not dealing with an academic offense?

Instructors, professors and administrators are commonly told, “But I didn’t know I was committing an academic offense!”. Universities generally hold the position that it is your responsibility to know, so this is not a good excuse. We refer you back to the statement above where it says to read the code of conduct for your university. As a student, you are expected to know the rules, so pleading ignorance just isn’t acceptable.

All of this negative information is not meant to scare you, but is really meant to clarify what simply is not okay.

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Annotation Exercise: Compare your annotations to a peer once you have finished. What did you mark that they didn’t? Did you both get the same main point? Discuss. See the essay on pages 189-193 for an example annotated essay to help guide you in your own note-taking.