Chapter 6 Summary - The Bedford Researcher

Chapter 6 in The Bedford Researcher, written by Mike Palmquist, is all about the information you find. Palmquist talks about saving and organizing your information, taking notes, and creating a bibliography which all help with avoiding plagiarism and creating your first draft. In organizing and saving the print and web information you find Palmquist suggests a few tips, like coming up with a method and sticking with it; or, organizing your notes by the date they were written. For digital information Palmquist recommends, copy and pasting URL's into a document with notes about that URL; downloading your sources to a hard drive or flash drive; emailing yourself articles using the same subject line in the emails; using voice messages on your phone; using bookmarks or favorites; and most importantly backing up your files. When taking notes Palmquist says that choosing and sticking with a method will help you to save time and understand your sources thoroughly. Things like, paraphrasing, summarizing, and comparing sources will help you to utilize your notes in the most effective way possible. The last thing Palmquist mentions in this chapter is annotated and working bibliographies; which, an annotated bibliography is a list of all of your sources and a note about each of them, while a working bibliography is a running list of sources you plan to use. All of the techniques and methods Palmquist talks about in this chapter are crucial in writing a paper, if your information isn't organized your paper won't be.