Library libguides: The research process on the Extended Essay: 4. Organize

The Research Process

research process

The fourth stage of the research process is to organize your work.

After the research it's time to start writing! On this page you can find information on:

Quotations, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing
Steps for Revising Your Paper
Using Notecards in NoodleTools
Useful Note-taking Tools: Memonic and Evernote

You are expected to work with your information sources effectively to extract and record the most useful information and produce your own original piece of work.

Quotations, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

A quotation is a piece taken from another piece of work, exactly as it was originally written.

Paraphrasing involves taking a piece of writing and re-writing it in your own words.

Summarizing involves using your own words to re-write the main idea(s) of someone else's work. A summary will be significantly shorter than the original piece and will be a broad overview of it's content.

Quotations and paraphrased or summarized material must always include a citation and reference to the original source. See the OWL Center website page Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarizing, the guide, Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting from Sources, from the Eastern Illinois University Writing Center, and the IB document, Effective Citatons and Referencing, for more information. (Links are below.)

OWL: Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing
The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University offers writing resources and online reference material,This page of their website is on quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing

Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting from Sources
Defines and explains summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting, and when each is appropriate for your research paper. Also explains the use of "signal phrases" when quotations are integrated into a paper, and gives a list of suggested verbs for signal phrases. Source: Eastern Illinois University Writing Center.
Effective Citing and Referencing
Explains why citations are needed, what needs to be cited, when citations are necessary, and how to cite, and also provides a list of citation definitions, a documentation checklist, and a chart showing the elements to be included in a reference.

Tips for summarizing a piece of writing:

Scan the text and make notes on paper. Read closely to absorb the author’s tone and central ideas, and then comb back through to clarify points.
Outline the main idea of each section in your own words. Include only meaningful details and proofs, organizing them from most to least important.
Develop your thesis, summarizing the main points of the piece. Be sure to include the author’s name and the title of the work right away. Tip: Avoid using your own opinions or interpretations, no matter how familiar the subject may be.
Arrange the information to clearly support the author's points, adding details to each section. Improve the flow of ideas with transitions that connect sections.
Be sure that sources are cited properly. Paraphrase and don’t use the author’s words if you can help it. Make sure you haven’t wandered off topic. Tip: Ask who, what, why, when, where, and how questions to be sure you have represented the author’s work faithfully.
Make final corrections, looking at your grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Dignify your work and that of your subject’s with the care good scholarship demands.
Ask for criticism - try asking a hyper-critical friend to read your work. Be receptive and not over-sensitive – if they can’t identify your main points, you need to revise.

Steps for Revising Your Paper

OWL: Steps for Revising Your Paper
Proofreading is primarily about searching your writing for errors, both grammatical and typographical, before submitting your paper for an audience (a teacher, a publisher, etc.). Use this resource to help you find and fix common errors.

Memonic

Memonic
Memonic is a free, online note-taking application.
You can clip content, save webpages to read later, or simply take a note. Organize with tags and notes, and synch your collection to your phone and laptop and have all of your notes and reading material available to you anytime.

Evernote

Watch this video from the Center for Technology in Learning and Teaching at Iowa State University for an introduction to how you can use Evernote to organize your research.

Culver, Dennis. Introduction to Evernote. YouTube. Center for Technology in
Learning and Teaching, 20 Oct. 2013. Web. 21 Aug. 2015.
<https://youtu.be/Ia4ksGwFQxk>.

Evernote
Use Evernote to: take and save notes, and use the Web Clipper to save research, emails, news, and anything other digital content from the web or emails from your desktop computer into Evernote. You can access everything from your computer, phone, or the web. A Basic Evernote account is free.