Once you have located your sources and have them in hand, your next step is to read them and, taking notes, store whatever information you gather for possible use when composing your paper.

There is no one way to take notes. For reading whole essays and digesting their essential content, writing rhetorical précis, making dialectical notes, or doing charted readings works very well. But when the time comes to collect information that you may use in your paper, what works for you may not work for someone else. As a consequence, everyone has to find his or her own method. In addition to dialectical note taking, the composing of rhetorical précis, and creating charted readings, you have many other options for note taking. Decide for yourself which of the following methods will work for you and use that system to collect information...