Reading Passage
If you take note efficiently, you can read with more understanding and also save time and frustration when you come to write your. These are three main principles:
1. Know what kind of ideas you need to record
Focus your approach to the topic before you start detailed research. Then you will read with a purpose in mind, and you will be able to sort out relevant ideas.
* First, review the commonly known facts about you topic, and also become aware of the range of thinking and opinions on it. Review your class notes and textbook and browse in an encyclopedia or other reference work.
* Try making a preliminary list of the subtopics you would expect to find in your reading. These will guide your attention and may come in handy as labels for notes.
* Choose a component or angle that interests you, perhaps one on which there is already some controversy. Now formulate your research question. It should allow for reasoning as well as gathering of information -- not just what the proto-lroquoians ate, for instance, but how valid the evidence is for early introduction of corn. You may even want to jot down a tentative thesis statement as a preliminary answer to your question.
* Then you will know what to look for in your research reading: facts and theories that help answer your question, and other people's opinions about whether specific answers are good ones.