Note-taking Strategies

[vitaebella]

Hey all,

 

I just wrapped up my first year in an English MA program and things went pretty well, but I found myself really struggling with effective note-taking on pretty much all kinds of texts, especially when it came to tracking the longer and more complicated arguments in the academic texts. This is rather embarrassing to admit, and I'm not sure how I got this far without developing a better note-taking method than the underline, write out a few quotes and hope for the best strategy, but I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for refining note-taking techniques?  Especially when it comes to tracking and pinning down the essence of the argument in really long, unwieldy, complicated essays or monographs.

 

I'm starting work on my thesis this summer and I am desperate to get better at this before I start trying to tackle the research.  Any suggestions for note-taking programs or essential tricks would be greatly appreciated!

 

 

 

 

[fuzzylogician]

I'm not an English student and can't help directly, but I ran a quick search and some thing popped up. Maybe this thread could help: 

 

There are other thread that might be useful if you search for "note-taking." 

[vitaebella]

Ah, thank you so much, my brain is so fried from the past 9 months I forgot to search first.  Whoops!