An effective working method includes reading texts and taking notes, often in the form of reading sheets.

Objective 

• Acquire a good working method for gathering information for research work.

An academic work is not approached as leisure reading because you must identify relevant information in the context of the work to be carried out and retain important notions and ideas to enrich your own knowledge in the field.

• identify main ideas and secondary ideas.
• note important passages and corresponding page numbers.
• be attentive to transition particles that add an idea, mark a restriction, motivate a judgment or announce an example (see a list of  relation markers ).

Furthermore, do not hesitate to:

• interrupt reading that does not arouse interest or that strays from your needs.
• make a selective reading according to the objective pursued.
• reread passages deemed important to fully understand the author's ideas.
• leave aside a work that would require prior knowledge.

To manage your time effectively, it is advisable to methodically collect the information gathered during reading in the form of cards. Reading sheets are used not only to find a document later, but also to take notes for writing the research work.

It is best to develop only one idea per sheet. Studying a document could therefore require several reading sheets. Records in electronic format can be produced with word processing software, a spreadsheet or  bibliographic management software  (see this example with  EndNote ).

Several Web applications also offer interesting alternatives with enriched functions:

• Evernote
• Simplenote
• Notesync
• Memonic

• Acquiring an effective working method involves knowing how to read documents and how to complete this reading by compiling comments in well-organized sheets.

Links/documents

Infosphère / https://infosphere.uqam.ca