I.  Organization of time and material.

 B.  Take notes in the manner most convenient to you (e.g. note cards, legal-size pads, computer).  Be sure to record all bibliographic information (e.g. date of publication, page reference) while you have the source in front of you.

 C.  Your research is usually a combination of the inductive and deductive method.  After some of your research is completed, write out your thesis, at least a tentative one. It should be sufficiently narrow so that you can support this generalization, an argument that won’t require exhaustive research.  Once the thesis is determined, your reading will be more focused and efficient.  At the same time, make a list of the paper's major subtopics.

 D.  Write an outline, one which suits your methods best (e.g a sequence of sentences, a list of major topics or main ideas). Formal outlines, the kind with Roman numerals, sub-sub-topics, etc., unless useful to you, aren't necessary.

 E.  Begin writing your draft, allowing space and time for changes resulting from either last-minute reading, or fresh ideas.  Try to print out several drafts. Often professors will offer to read a draft, and if so, take advantage of this opportunity. You can also take a draft to a writing tutor. Try to leave time to examine your penultimate draft critically before you prepare the final copy.
 

II.  Handling material from your sources.

 Example 1: Original version

The Wild West beyond the frontier lent itself readily  to interpretation in a literature developing the themes of natural nobility and physical adventure, but the agricultural West, as we have already remarked, proved quite intractable as literary material.  The myth of the garden and the ideal figure of the Western yeoman were poetic ideas, as Tocqueville rightly called them, but they could not be brought to fictional expression.   The difficulty lay in the class status of the Western farmer.  The Declaration of Independence has proclaimed that all men were created equal, and American political institutions had reflected a general acceptance of the proposition in the widespread removal of property qualifications for the franchise as early as the 1820's  and 1830's.  But there was a lag of half a century between the triumph of the idea of equality in politics  and its embodiment in imaginative literature (Smith 211).

 Example 2: Plagiarized version

Beyond the frontier, in the extreme western United States, developed an area which suited itself easily to interpretation in literature involving the ideas of natural nobility and physical adventure; however, as we have seen, the rural areas east of the Wild West was quite intractable as a source for fiction.  The myth of the ideal yeoman and the garden were poetic ideas, but somehow they proved to be unsatisfactory for fictional expression.  The problem came from the class status of the Western farmer.  The Declaration of Independence had stated that all men were created equal, and as early as the 1820's and 1830's American political institutions had demonstrated a general acceptance of  that proposition.  But there was a fifty year lag between the success of the idea of equality in politics and its embodiment in American literature (Smith 211).

 Example 3: Mixed paraphrase and quotation

In Virgin Land, a study of Western myths, Henry Nash Smith writes that although the Wild west provided good  sources for literature concerning "natural nobility and physical adventure," the rural western United States "proved quite intractable as literary material."  Pastoral subjects simply did not produce good fiction, says Smith, and he believes the main reason was that farmers were middle class.  Readers of literature preferred aristocratic characters and it wasn't until the 1880s that American reading tastes caught up with the American political preferences for egalitarianism (211).

 Try to paraphrase as much as possible.  No more than 10% of any research paper should be quoted!

 B. As often as possible (but of course without getting monotonous) refer to your source in the text.  For example:

A column in the New York Times discussed this arrangement and makes several observations.  The author concludes that ...

Concerning this apparent paradox, Williams comments that  "the changes taking place in marriage forms are ..."

The difficulties associated with this treaty, according to one diplomat, are
probably ...

This technique 1) makes clear which idea or statement belongs to another writer and 2) helps with transition, from your prose to the paraphrase or quotation.
 

III.  What to document?

IV. The conventions of documentation.

     Note that papers written for courses in the physical and natural sciences and some social sciences such as psychology use a slightly different citation system, e.g. APA .  Adapt your documentation format to the discipline in which you're writing.  Most professors will specify the system you should use. If they don't, ask them!