how to make notes from research paper

How to Do Research: A Step-By-Step Guide: 4a. Take Notes

• Get Started
• 1a. Select a Topic
• 1b. Develop Research Questions
• 1c. Identify Keywords
• 1d. Find Background Information
• 1e. Refine a Topic
• 2a. Search Strategies
• 2d. Articles
• 2e. Videos & Images
• 2f. Databases
• 2g. Websites
• 2h. Grey Literature
• 2i. Open Access Materials
• 3a. Evaluate Sources
• 3b. Primary vs. Secondary
• 3c. Types of Periodicals
• 4a. Take Notes
• 4b. Outline the Paper
• 4c. Incorporate Source Material
• 5a. Avoid Plagiarism
• 5b. Zotero & MyBib
• 5c. MLA Formatting
• 5d. MLA Citation Examples
• 5e. APA Formatting
• 5f. APA Citation Examples
• 5g. Annotated Bibliographies

Note Taking in Bibliographic Management Tools

We encourage students to use bibliographic citation management tools (such as Zotero, EasyBib and RefWorks) to keep track of their research citations. Each service includes a note-taking function. Find more information about citation management tools here . Whether or not you're using one of these, the tips below will help you.

Tips for Taking Notes Electronically

• Try using a bibliographic citation management tool to keep track of your sources and to take notes.
• As you add sources, put them in the format you're using (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.).
• Group sources by publication type (i.e., book, article, website).
• Number each source within the publication type group.
• For websites, include the URL information and the date you accessed each site.
• Next to each idea, include the source number from the Works Cited file and the page number from the source. See the examples below. Note that #A5 and #B2 refer to article source 5 and book source 2 from the Works Cited file.

#A5 p.35: 76.69% of the hyperlinks selected from homepage are for articles and the catalog #B2 p.76: online library guides evolved from the paper pathfinders of the 1960s

• When done taking notes, assign keywords or sub-topic headings to each idea, quote or summary.
• Use the copy and paste feature to group keywords or sub-topic ideas together.
• Back up your master list and note files frequently!

Tips for Taking Notes by Hand

• Use index cards to keep notes and track sources used in your paper.
• Include the citation (i.e., author, title, publisher, date, page numbers, etc.) in the format you're using. It will be easier to organize the sources alphabetically when creating the Works Cited page.
• Number the source cards.
• Use only one side to record a single idea, fact or quote from one source. It will be easier to rearrange them later when it comes time to organize your paper.
• Include a heading or key words at the top of the card. 
• Include the Work Cited source card number.
• Include the page number where you found the information.
• Use abbreviations, acronyms, or incomplete sentences to record information to speed up the notetaking process.
• Write down only the information that answers your research questions.
• Use symbols, diagrams, charts or drawings to simplify and visualize ideas.

Forms of Notetaking

Use one of these notetaking forms to capture information:

• Summarize : Capture the main ideas of the source succinctly by restating them in your own words.
• Paraphrase : Restate the author's ideas in your own words.
• Quote : Copy the quotation exactly as it appears in the original source. Put quotation marks around the text and note the name of the person you are quoting.

Example of a Work Cited Card

Example notecard.

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13.5 Research Process: Making Notes, Synthesizing Information, and Keeping a Research Log

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Employ the methods and technologies commonly used for research and communication within various fields.
• Practice and apply strategies such as interpretation, synthesis, response, and critique to compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those from appropriate sources.
• Analyze and make informed decisions about intellectual property based on the concepts that motivate them.
• Apply citation conventions systematically.

As you conduct research, you will work with a range of “texts” in various forms, including sources and documents from online databases as well as images, audio, and video files from the Internet. You may also work with archival materials and with transcribed and analyzed primary data. Additionally, you will be taking notes and recording quotations from secondary sources as you find materials that shape your understanding of your topic and, at the same time, provide you with facts and perspectives. You also may download articles as PDFs that you then annotate. Like many other students, you may find it challenging to keep so much material organized, accessible, and easy to work with while you write a major research paper. As it does for many of those students, a research log for your ideas and sources will help you keep track of the scope, purpose, and possibilities of any research project.

A research log is essentially a journal in which you collect information, ask questions, and monitor the results. Even if you are completing the annotated bibliography for Writing Process: Informing and Analyzing , keeping a research log is an effective organizational tool. Like Lily Tran’s research log entry, most entries have three parts: a part for notes on secondary sources, a part for connections to the thesis or main points, and a part for your own notes or questions. Record source notes by date, and allow room to add cross-references to other entries.

Summary of Assignment: Research Log

Your assignment is to create a research log similar to the student model. You will use it for the argumentative research project assigned in Writing Process: Integrating Research to record all secondary source information: your notes, complete publication data, relation to thesis, and other information as indicated in the right-hand column of the sample entry.

Another Lens. A somewhat different approach to maintaining a research log is to customize it to your needs or preferences. You can apply shading or color coding to headers, rows, and/or columns in the three-column format (for colors and shading). Or you can add columns to accommodate more information, analysis, synthesis, or commentary, formatting them as you wish. Consider adding a column for questions only or one for connections to other sources. Finally, consider a different visual format , such as one without columns. Another possibility is to record some of your comments and questions so that you have an aural rather than a written record of these.

Writing Center

At this point, or at any other point during the research and writing process, you may find that your school’s writing center can provide extensive assistance. If you are unfamiliar with the writing center, now is a good time to pay your first visit. Writing centers provide free peer tutoring for all types and phases of writing. Discussing your research with a trained writing center tutor can help you clarify, analyze, and connect ideas as well as provide feedback on works in progress.

Quick Launch: Beginning Questions

You may begin your research log with some open pages in which you freewrite, exploring answers to the following questions. Although you generally would do this at the beginning, it is a process to which you likely will return as you find more information about your topic and as your focus changes, as it may during the course of your research.

• What information have I found so far?
• What do I still need to find?
• Where am I most likely to find it?

These are beginning questions. Like Lily Tran, however, you will come across general questions or issues that a quick note or freewrite may help you resolve. The key to this section is to revisit it regularly. Written answers to these and other self-generated questions in your log clarify your tasks as you go along, helping you articulate ideas and examine supporting evidence critically. As you move further into the process, consider answering the following questions in your freewrite:

• What evidence looks as though it best supports my thesis?
• What evidence challenges my working thesis?
• How is my thesis changing from where it started?

Creating the Research Log

As you gather source material for your argumentative research paper, keep in mind that the research is intended to support original thinking. That is, you are not writing an informational report in which you simply supply facts to readers. Instead, you are writing to support a thesis that shows original thinking, and you are collecting and incorporating research into your paper to support that thinking. Therefore, a research log, whether digital or handwritten, is a great way to keep track of your thinking as well as your notes and bibliographic information.

In the model below, Lily Tran records the correct MLA bibliographic citation for the source. Then, she records a note and includes the in-text citation here to avoid having to retrieve this information later. Perhaps most important, Tran records why she noted this information—how it supports her thesis: The human race must turn to sustainable food systems that provide healthy diets with minimal environmental impact, starting now . Finally, she makes a note to herself about an additional visual to include in the final paper to reinforce the point regarding the current pressure on food systems. And she connects the information to other information she finds, thus cross-referencing and establishing a possible synthesis. Use a format similar to that in Table 13.4 to begin your own research log.

Types of Research Notes

Taking good notes will make the research process easier by enabling you to locate and remember sources and use them effectively. While some research projects requiring only a few sources may seem easily tracked, research projects requiring more than a few sources are more effectively managed when you take good bibliographic and informational notes. As you gather evidence for your argumentative research paper, follow the descriptions and the electronic model to record your notes. You can combine these with your research log, or you can use the research log for secondary sources and your own note-taking system for primary sources if a division of this kind is helpful. Either way, be sure to include all necessary information.

Bibliographic Notes

These identify the source you are using. When you locate a useful source, record the information necessary to find that source again. It is important to do this as you find each source, even before taking notes from it. If you create bibliographic notes as you go along, then you can easily arrange them in alphabetical order later to prepare the reference list required at the end of formal academic papers. If your instructor requires you to use MLA formatting for your essay, be sure to record the following information:

• Title of source
• Title of container (larger work in which source is included)
• Other contributors
• Publication date

When using MLA style with online sources, also record the following information:

• Date of original publication
• Date of access
• DOI (A DOI, or digital object identifier, is a series of digits and letters that leads to the location of an online source. Articles in journals are often assigned DOIs to ensure that the source can be located, even if the URL changes. If your source is listed with a DOI, use that instead of a URL.)

It is important to understand which documentation style your instructor will require you to use. Check the Handbook for MLA Documentation and Format and APA Documentation and Format styles . In addition, you can check the style guide information provided by the Purdue Online Writing Lab .

Informational Notes

These notes record the relevant information found in your sources. When writing your essay, you will work from these notes, so be sure they contain all the information you need from every source you intend to use. Also try to focus your notes on your research question so that their relevance is clear when you read them later. To avoid confusion, work with separate entries for each piece of information recorded. At the top of each entry, identify the source through brief bibliographic identification (author and title), and note the page numbers on which the information appears. Also helpful is to add personal notes, including ideas for possible use of the information or cross-references to other information. As noted in Writing Process: Integrating Research , you will be using a variety of formats when borrowing from sources. Below is a quick review of these formats in terms of note-taking processes. By clarifying whether you are quoting directly, paraphrasing, or summarizing during these stages, you can record information accurately and thus take steps to avoid plagiarism.

Direct Quotations, Paraphrases, and Summaries

A direct quotation is an exact duplication of the author’s words as they appear in the original source. In your notes, put quotation marks around direct quotations so that you remember these words are the author’s, not yours. One advantage of copying exact quotations is that it allows you to decide later whether to include a quotation, paraphrase, or summary. ln general, though, use direct quotations only when the author’s words are particularly lively or persuasive.

A paraphrase is a restatement of the author’s words in your own words. Paraphrase to simplify or clarify the original author’s point. In your notes, use paraphrases when you need to record details but not exact words.

A summary is a brief condensation or distillation of the main point and most important details of the original source. Write a summary in your own words, with facts and ideas accurately represented. A summary is useful when specific details in the source are unimportant or irrelevant to your research question. You may find you can summarize several paragraphs or even an entire article or chapter in just a few sentences without losing useful information. It is a good idea to note when your entry contains a summary to remind you later that it omits detailed information. See Writing Process Integrating Research for more detailed information and examples of quotations, paraphrases, and summaries and when to use them.

Other Systems for Organizing Research Logs and Digital Note-Taking

Students often become frustrated and at times overwhelmed by the quantity of materials to be managed in the research process. If this is your first time working with both primary and secondary sources, finding ways to keep all of the information in one place and well organized is essential.

Because gathering primary evidence may be a relatively new practice, this section is designed to help you navigate the process. As mentioned earlier, information gathered in fieldwork is not cataloged, organized, indexed, or shelved for your convenience. Obtaining it requires diligence, energy, and planning. Online resources can assist you with keeping a research log. Your college library may have subscriptions to tools such as Todoist or EndNote. Consult with a librarian to find out whether you have access to any of these. If not, use something like the template shown in Figure 13.8 , or another like it, as a template for creating your own research notes and organizational tool. You will need to have a record of all field research data as well as the research log for all secondary sources.

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Office of Undergraduate Research

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How to take Research Notes

How to take research notes.

Your research notebook is an important piece of information useful for future projects and presentations. Maintaining organized and legible notes allows your research notebook to be a valuable resource to you and your research group. It allows others and yourself to replicate experiments, and it also serves as a useful troubleshooting tool. Besides it being an important part of the research process, taking detailed notes of your research will help you stay organized and allow you to easily review your work.

Here are some common reasons to maintain organized notes:

• Keeps a record of your goals and thoughts during your research experiments.
• Keeps a record of what worked and what didn't in your research experiments.
• Enables others to use your notes as a guide for similar procedures and techniques.
• A helpful tool to reference when writing a paper, submitting a proposal, or giving a presentation.
• Assists you in answering experimental questions.
• Useful to efficiently share experimental approaches, data, and results with others.

Before taking notes:

• Ask your research professor what note-taking method they recommend or prefer.
• Consider what type of media you'll be using to take notes.
• Once you have decided on how you'll be taking notes, be sure to keep all of your notes in one place to remain organized.
• Plan on taking notes regularly (meetings, important dates, procedures, journal/manuscript revisions, etc.).
• This is useful when applying to programs or internships that ask about your research experience.

Note Taking Tips:

Taking notes by hand:.

• Research notebooks don’t belong to you so make sure your notes are legible for others.
• Use post-it notes or tabs to flag important sections.
• Start sorting your notes early so that you don't become backed up and disorganized.
• Only write with a pen as pencils aren’t permanent & sharpies can bleed through.
• Make it a habit to write in your notebook and not directly on sticky notes or paper towels. Rewriting notes can waste time and sometimes lead to inaccurate data or results.

Taking Notes Electronically

• Make sure your device is charged and backed up to store data.
• Invest in note-taking apps or E-Ink tablets
• Create shortcuts to your folders so you have easier access
• Create outlines.
• Keep your notes short and legible.

Note Taking Tips Continued:

Things to avoid.

• Avoid using pencils or markers that may bleed through.
• Avoid erasing entries. Instead, draw a straight line through any mistakes and write the date next to the crossed-out information.
• Avoid writing in cursive.
• Avoid delaying your entries so you don’t fall behind and forget information.

Formatting Tips

• Use bullet points to condense your notes to make them simpler to access or color-code them.
• Tracking your failures and mistakes can improve your work in the future.
• If possible, take notes as you’re experimenting or make time at the end of each workday to get it done.
• Record the date at the start of every day, including all dates spent on research.

Types of media to use when taking notes:

Traditional paper notebook.

• Pros: Able to take quick notes, convenient access to notes, cheaper option
• Cons: Requires a table of contents or tabs as it is not easily searchable, can get damaged easily, needs to be scanned if making a digital copy

Electronic notebook  

• Apple Notes  
• Pros: Easily searchable, note-taking apps available, easy to edit & customize
• Cons: Can be difficult to find notes if they are unorganized, not as easy to take quick notes, can be a more expensive option

Combination of both

Contact info.

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Study Skills

Research skills.

• Searching the literature
• Note making for dissertations
• Research Data Management
• Copyright and licenses
• Publishing in journals
• Publishing academic books
• Depositing your thesis
• Research metrics
• Build your online profile
• Finding support

Note making for dissertations: First steps into writing

Note making (as opposed to note taking) is an active practice of recording relevant parts of reading for your research as well as your reflections and critiques of those studies. Note making, therefore, is a pre-writing exercise that helps you to organise your thoughts prior to writing. In this module, we will cover:

• The difference between note taking and note making
• Seven tips for good note making
• Strategies for structuring your notes and asking critical questions
• Different styles of note making

To complete this section, you will need:

• Approximately 20-30 minutes.
• Access to the internet. All the resources used here are available freely.
• Some equipment for jotting down your thoughts, a pen and paper will do, or your phone or another electronic device.

Note taking v note making

When you think about note taking, what comes to mind? Perhaps trying to record everything said in a lecture? Perhaps trying to write down everything included in readings required for a course?

• Note taking is a passive process. When you take notes, you are often trying to record everything that you are reading or listening to. However, you may have noticed that this takes a lot of effort and often results in too many notes to be useful.  
• Note making , on the other hand, is an active practice, based on the needs and priorities of your project. Note making is an opportunity for you to ask critical questions of your readings and to synthesise ideas as they pertain to your research questions. Making notes is a pre-writing exercise that develops your academic voice and makes writing significantly easier.

Seven tips for effective note making

Note making is an active process based on the needs of your research. This video contains seven tips to help you make brilliant notes from articles and books to make the most of the time you spend reading and writing.

• Transcript of Seven Tips for Effective Notemaking

Question prompts for strategic note making

You might consider structuring your notes to answer the following questions. Remember that note making is based on your needs, so not all of these questions will apply in all cases. You might try answering these questions using the note making styles discussed in the next section.

• Question prompts for strategic note making
• Background question prompts
• Critical question prompts
• Synthesis question prompts

Answer these six questions to frame your reading and provide context.

• What is the context in which the text was written? What came before it? Are there competing ideas?
• Who is the intended audience?
• What is the author’s purpose?
• How is the writing organised?
• What are the author’s methods?
• What is the author’s key argument and conclusions?

Answer these six questions to determine your critical perspectivess and develop your academic voice.

• What are the most interesting/compelling ideas (to you) in this study?
• Why do you find them interesting? How do they relate to your study?
• What questions do you have about the study?
• What could it cover better? How could it have defended its research better?
• What are the implications of the study? (Look not just to the conclusions but also to definitions and models)
• Are there any gaps in the study? (Look not just at conclusions but definitions, literature review, methodology)

Answer these five questions to compare aspects of various studies (such as for a literature review. 

• What are the similarities and differences in the literature?
• Critically analyse the strengths, limitations, debates and themes that emerg from the literature.
• What would you suggest for future research or practice?
• Where are the gaps in the literature? What is missing? Why?
• What new questions should be asked in this area of study?

Styles of note making

• Linear notes . Great for recording thoughts about your readings. [video]
• Mind mapping : Great for thinking through complex topics. [video]

Further sites that discuss techniques for note making:

• Note-taking techniques
• Common note-taking methods
• Strategies for effective note making  

Did you know?

How did you find this Research Skills module

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Smart Note-Taking for Research Paper Writing

How to organize research notes using the Zettelkasten Method when writing academic papers

With plenty of note-taking tips and apps available, online and in paper form, it’s become extremely easy to take note of information, ideas, or thoughts. As simple as it is to write down an idea or jot down a quote, the skill of academic research and writing for a thesis paper is on another level entirely. And keeping a record or an archive of all of the information you need can quickly require a very organized system.

The use of index cards seems old-fashioned considering that note-taking apps (psst! Hypernotes ) offer better functionality and are arguably more user-friendly. However, software is only there to help aid our individual workflow and thinking process. That’s why understanding and learning how to properly research, take notes and write academic papers is still a highly valuable skill.

Let’s Start Writing! But Where to Start…

Writing academic papers is a vital skill most students need to learn and practice. Academic papers are usually time-intensive pieces of written content that are a requirement throughout school or at University. Whether a topic is assigned or you have to choose your own, there’s little room for variation in how to begin.

Popular and purposeful in analyzing and evaluating the knowledge of the author as well as assessing if the learning objectives were met, research papers serve as information-packed content. Most of us may not end up working jobs in academic professions or be researchers at institutions, where writing research papers is also part of the job, but we often read such papers. 

Despite the fact that most research papers or dissertations aren’t often read in full, journalists, academics, and other professionals regularly use academic papers as a basis for further literary publications or blog articles. The standard of academic papers ensures the validity of the information and gives the content authority. 

There’s no-nonsense in research papers. To make sure to write convincing and correct content, the research stage is extremely important. And, naturally, when doing any kind of research, we take notes.

Why Take Notes?

There are particular standards defined for writing academic papers . In order to meet these standards, a specific amount of background information and researched literature is required. Taking notes helps keep track of read/consumed literary material as well as keeps a file of any information that may be of importance to the topic. 

The aim of writing isn’t merely to advertise fully formed opinions, but also serves the purpose of developing opinions worth sharing in the first place. 

What is Note-Taking?

Note-taking (sometimes written as notetaking or note-taking ) is the practice of recording information from different sources and platforms. For academic writing, note-taking is the process of obtaining and compiling information that answers and supports the research paper’s questions and topic. Notes can be in one of three forms: summary, paraphrase, or direct quotation.

Note-taking is an excellent process useful for anyone to turn individual thoughts and information into organized ideas ready to be communicated through writing. Notes are, however, only as valuable as the context. Since notes are also a byproduct of the information we consume daily, it’s important to categorize information, develop connections, and establish relationships between pieces of information. 

What Type of Notes Can I Take?

• Explanation of complex theories
• Background information on events or persons of interest
• Definitions of terms
• Quotations of significant value
• Illustrations or graphics

Note-Taking 101

Taking notes or doing research for academic papers shouldn’t be that difficult, considering we take notes all the time. Wrong. Note-taking for research papers isn’t the same as quickly noting down an interesting slogan or cool quote from a video, putting it on a sticky note, and slapping it onto your bedroom or office wall.

Note-taking for research papers requires focus and careful deliberation of which information is important to note down, keep on file, or use and reference in your own writing. Depending on the topic and requirements of your research paper from your University or institution, your notes might include explanations of complex theories, definitions, quotations, and graphics. 

Stages of Research Paper Writing

1. Preparation Stage

Before you start, it’s recommended to draft a plan or an outline of how you wish to begin preparing to write your research paper. Make note of the topic you will be writing on, as well as the stylistic and literary requirements for your paper.

2. Research Stage

In the research stage, finding good and useful literary material for background knowledge is vital. To find particular publications on a topic, you can use Google Scholar or access literary databases and institutions made available to you through your school, university, or institution. 

Make sure to write down the source location of the literary material you find. Always include the reference title, author, page number, and source destination. This saves you time when formatting your paper in the later stages and helps keep the information you collect organized and referenceable.

In the worst-case scenario, you’ll have to do a backward search to find the source of a quote you wrote down without reference to the original literary material. 

3. Writing Stage

When writing, an outline or paper structure is helpful to visually break up the piece into sections. Once you have defined the sections, you can begin writing and referencing the information you have collected in the research stage.

Clearly mark which text pieces and information where you relied on background knowledge, which texts are directly sourced, and which information you summarized or have written in your own words. This is where your paper starts to take shape.  

4. Draft Stage

After organizing all of your collected notes and starting to write your paper, you are already in the draft stage. In the draft stage, the background information collected and the text written in your own words come together. Every piece of information is structured by the subtopics and sections you defined in the previous stages. 

5. Final Stage

Success! Well… almost! In the final stage, you look over your whole paper and check for consistency and any irrelevancies. Read through the entire paper for clarity, grammatical errors , and peace of mind that you have included everything important. 

Make sure you use the correct formatting and referencing method requested by your University or institution for research papers. Don’t forget to save it and then send the paper on its way.

Best Practice Note-Taking Tips

• Find relevant and authoritative literary material through the search bar of literary databases and institutions.
• Practice citation repeatedly! Always keep a record of the reference book title, author, page number, and source location. At best, format the citation in the necessary format from the beginning. 
• Organize your notes according to topic or reference to easily find the information again when in the writing stage. Work invested in the early stages eases the writing and editing process of the later stages.
• Summarize research notes and write in your own words as much as possible. Cite direct quotes and clearly mark copied text in your notes to avoid plagiarism.  

Take Smart Notes

Taking smart notes isn’t as difficult as it seems. It’s simply a matter of principle, defined structure, and consistency. Whether you opt for a paper-based system or use a digital tool to write and organize your notes depends solely on your individual personality, needs, and workflow.

With various productivity apps promoting diverse techniques, a good note-taking system to take smart notes is the Zettelkasten Method . Invented by Niklas Luhmann, a german sociologist and researcher, the Zettelkasten Method is known as the smart note-taking method that popularized personalized knowledge management. 

As a strategic process for thinking and writing, the Zettelkasten Method helps you organize your knowledge while working, studying, or researching. Directly translated as a ‘note box’, Zettelkasten is simply a framework to help organize your ideas, thoughts, and information by relating pieces of knowledge and connecting pieces of information to each other.

Hypernotes is a note-taking app that can be used as a software-based Zettelkasten, with integrated features to make smart note-taking so much easier, such as auto-connecting related notes, and syncing to multiple devices. In each notebook, you can create an archive of your thoughts, ideas, and information. 

Using the tag system to connect like-minded ideas and information to one another and letting Hypernotes do its thing with bi-directional linking, you’ll soon create a web of knowledge about anything you’ve ever taken note of. This feature is extremely helpful to navigate through the enormous amounts of information you’ve written down. Another benefit is that it assists you in categorizing and making connections between your ideas, thoughts, and saved information in a single notebook. Navigate through your notes, ideas, and knowledge easily.

Ready, Set, Go!

Writing academic papers is no simple task. Depending on the requirements, resources available, and your personal research and writing style, techniques, apps, or practice help keep you organized and increase your productivity. 

Whether you use a particular note-taking app like Hypernotes for your research paper writing or opt for a paper-based system, make sure you follow a particular structure. Repeat the steps that help you find the information you need quicker and allow you to reproduce or create knowledge naturally.

Images from NeONBRAND , hana_k and Surface via Unsplash 

A well-written piece is made up of authoritative sources and uses the art of connecting ideas, thoughts, and information together. Good luck to all students and professionals working on research paper writing! We hope these tips help you in organizing the information and aid your workflow in your writing process.

Cheers, Jessica and the Zenkit Team

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• writing a thesis paper
• zettelkasten method

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Research Paper: A step-by-step guide: 6. Taking Notes & Documenting Sources

• 1. Getting Started
• 2. Topic Ideas
• 3. Thesis Statement & Outline
• 4. Appropriate Sources
• 5. Search Techniques
• 6. Taking Notes & Documenting Sources
• 7. Evaluating Sources
• 8. Citations & Plagiarism
• 9. Writing Your Research Paper

Taking Notes & Documenting Sources

How to take notes and document sources.

Note taking is a very important part of the research process.  It will help you:

• keep your ideas and sources organized
• effectively use the information you find
• avoid plagiarism

When you find good information to be used in your paper:

• Read the text critically, think how it is related to your argument, and decide how you are going to use it in your paper.
• Select the material that is relevant to your argument.
• Copy the original text for direct quotations or briefly summarize the content in your own words, and make note of how you will use it.
• Copy the citation or publication information of the source.

There are different ways to take notes and organize your research. Check out this video, and try different strategies to find what works best for you. 

• << Previous: 5. Search Techniques
• Next: 7. Evaluating Sources >>
• Last Updated: Apr 18, 2023 12:12 PM
• URL: https://butte.libguides.com/ResearchPaper

How to Take Notes

How to Use Sources Effectively

Most articles in periodicals and some of the book sources you use, especially those from the children’s room at the library, are probably short enough that you can read them from beginning to end in a reasonable amount of time. Others, however, may be too long for you to do that, and some are likely to cover much more than just your topic. Use the table of contents and the index in a longer book to find the parts of the book that contain information on your topic. When you turn to those parts, skim them to make sure they contain information you can use. Feel free to skip parts that don’t relate to your questions, so you can get the information you need as quickly and efficiently as possible.

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Get 10% off with 24start discount code, methods for note taking.

Don’t—start reading a book and writing down information on a sheet of notebook paper. If you make this mistake, you’ll end up with a lot of disorganized scribbling that may be practically useless when you’re ready to outline your research paper and write a first draft. Some students who tried this had to cut up their notes into tiny strips, spread them out on the floor, and then tape the strips back together in order to put their information in an order that made sense. Other students couldn’t even do that—without going to a photocopier first—because they had written on both sides of the paper. To avoid that kind of trouble, use the tried-and-true method students have been using for years—take notes on index cards.

Taking Notes on Index Cards

As you begin reading your sources, use either 3″ x 5″ or 4″ x 6″ index cards to write down information you might use in your paper. The first thing to remember is: Write only one idea on each card. Even if you write only a few words on one card, don’t write anything about a new idea on that card. Begin a new card instead. Also, keep all your notes for one card only on that card. It’s fine to write on both the front and back of a card, but don’t carry the same note over to a second card. If you have that much to write, you probably have more than one idea.

After you complete a note card, write the source number of the book you used in the upper left corner of the card. Below the source number, write the exact number or numbers of the pages on which you found the information. In the upper right corner, write one or two words that describe the specific subject of the card. These words are like a headline that describes the main information on the card. Be as clear as possible because you will need these headlines later.

After you finish taking notes from a source, write a check mark on your source card as a reminder that you’ve gone through that source thoroughly and written down all the important information you found there. That way, you won’t wonder later whether you should go back and read that source again.

Taking Notes on Your Computer

Another way to take notes is on your computer. In order to use this method, you have to rely completely on sources that you can take home, unless you have a laptop computer that you can take with you to the library.

If you do choose to take notes on your computer, think of each entry on your screen as one in a pack of electronic note cards. Write your notes exactly as if you were using index cards. Be sure to leave space between each note so that they don’t run together and look confusing when you’re ready to use them. You might want to insert a page break between each “note card.”

When deciding whether to use note cards or a computer, remember one thing—high-tech is not always better. Many students find low-tech index cards easier to organize and use than computer notes that have to be moved around by cutting and pasting. In the end, you’re the one who knows best how you work, so the choice is up to you.

How to Take Effective Notes

Knowing the best format for notes is important, but knowing what to write on your cards or on your computer is essential. Strong notes are the backbone of a good research paper.

Not Too Much or Too Little

When researching, you’re likely to find a lot of interesting information that you never knew before. That’s great! You can never learn too much. But for now your goal is to find information you can use in your research paper. Giving in to the temptation to take notes on every detail you find in your research can lead to a huge volume of notes—many of which you won’t use at all. This can become difficult to manage at later stages, so limit yourself to information that really belongs in your paper. If you think a piece of information might be useful but you aren’t sure, ask yourself whether it helps answer one of your research questions.

Writing too much is one pitfall; writing too little is another. Consider this scenario: You’ve been working in the library for a couple of hours, and your hand grows tired from writing. You come to a fairly complicated passage about how to tell if a dog is angry, so you say to yourself, “I don’t have to write all this down. I’ll remember.” But you won’t remember—especially after all the reading and note taking you have been doing. If you find information you know you want to use later on, get it down. If you’re too tired, take a break or take off the rest of the day and return tomorrow when you’re fresh.

To Note or Not to Note: That is the Question

What if you come across an idea or piece of information that you’ve already found in another source? Should you write it down again? You don’t want to end up with a whole stack of cards with the same information on each one. On the other hand, knowing that more than one source agrees on a particular point is helpful. Here’s the solution: Simply add the number of the new source to the note card that already has the same piece of information written on it. Take notes on both sources. In your paper, you may want to come right out and say that sources disagree on this point. You may even want to support one opinion or the other—if you think you have a strong enough argument based on facts from your research.

Paraphrasing—Not Copying

Have you ever heard the word plagiarism? It means copying someone else’s words and claiming them as your own. It’s really a kind of stealing, and there are strict rules against it.

The trouble is many students plagiarize without meaning to do so. The problem starts at the note-taking stage. As a student takes notes, he or she may simply copy the exact words from a source. The student doesn’t put quotation marks around the words to show that they are someone else’s. When it comes time to draft the paper, the student doesn’t even remember that those words were copied from a source, and the words find their way into the draft and then into the final paper. Without intending to do so, that student has plagiarized, or stolen, another person’s words.

The way to avoid plagiarism is to paraphrase, or write down ideas in your own words rather than copy them exactly. Look again at the model note cards in this chapter, and notice that the words in the notes are not the same as the words from the sources. Some of the notes are not even written in complete sentences. Writing in incomplete sentences is one way to make sure you don’t copy—and it saves you time, energy, and space. When you write a draft of your research paper, of course, you will use complete sentences.

How to Organize Your Notes

Once you’ve used all your sources and taken all your notes, what do you have? You have a stack of cards (or if you’ve taken notes on a computer, screen after screen of entries) about a lot of stuff in no particular order. Now you need to organize your notes in order to turn them into the powerful tool that helps you outline and draft your research paper. Following are some ideas on how to do this, so get your thinking skills in gear to start doing the job for your own paper.

Organizing Note Cards

The beauty of using index cards to take notes is that you can move them around until they are in the order you want. You don’t have to go through complicated cutting-and-pasting procedures, as you would on your computer, and you can lay your cards out where you can see them all at once. One word of caution—work on a surface where your cards won’t fall on the floor while you’re organizing them.

Start by sorting all your cards with the same headlines into the same piles, since all of these note cards are about the same basic idea. You don’t have to worry about keeping notes from the same sources together because each card is marked with a number identifying its source.

Next, arrange the piles of cards so that the order the ideas appear in makes sense. Experts have named six basic types of order. One—or a combination of these—may work for you:

• Chronological , or Time, Order covers events in the order in which they happened. This kind of order works best for papers that discuss historical events or tell about a person’s life.
• Spatial  Order organizes your information by its place or position. This kind of order can work for papers about geography or about how to design something—a garden, for example.
• Cause and Effect  discusses how one event or action leads to another. This kind of organization works well if your paper explains a scientific process or events in history.
• Problem/Solution explains a problem and one or more ways in which it can be solved. You might use this type of organization for a paper about an environmental issue, such as global warming.
• Compare and Contrast  discusses similarities and differences between people, things, events, or ideas.
• Order of  Importance  explains an idea, starting with its most important aspects first and ending with the least important aspects—or the other way around.

After you determine your basic organization, arrange your piles accordingly. You’ll end up with three main piles—one for sounds, one for facial expressions, and one for body language. Go through each pile and put the individual cards in an order that makes sense. Don’t forget that you can move your cards around, trying out different organizations, until you are satisfied that one idea flows logically into another. Use a paper clip or rubber band to hold the piles together, and then stack them in the order you choose. Put a big rubber band around the whole stack so the cards stay in order.

Organizing Notes on Your Computer

If you’ve taken notes on a computer, organize them in much the same way you would organize index cards. The difference is that you use the cut-and-paste functions on your computer rather than moving cards around. The advantage is that you end up with something that’s already typed—something you can eventually turn into an outline without having to copy anything over. The disadvantage is that you may have more trouble moving computer notes around than note cards: You can’t lay your notes out and look at them all at once, and you may get confused when trying to find where information has moved within a long file on your computer screen.

However, be sure to back up your note cards on an external storage system of your choice. In addition, print hard copies as you work. This way, you won’t lose your material if your hard drive crashes or the file develops a glitch.

Developing a Working Bibliography

When you start your research, your instructor may ask you to prepare a working bibliography listing the sources you plan to use. Your working bibliography differs from your Works Cited page in its scope: your working bibliography is much larger. Your Works Cited page will include only those sources you have actually cited in your research paper.

To prepare a working bibliography, arrange your note cards in the order required by your documentation system (such as MLA and APA) and keyboard the entries following the correct form. If you have created your bibliography cards on the computer, you just have to sort them, usually into alphabetical order.

Developing an Annotated Bibliography

Some instructors may ask you to create an annotated bibliography as a middle step between your working bibliography and your Works Cited page. An annotated bibliography is the same as a working bibliography except that it includes comments about the sources. These notes enable your instructor to assess your progress. They also help you evaluate your information more easily. For example, you might note that some sources are difficult to find, hard to read, or especially useful.

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Research Guides

Gould library, reading well and taking research notes.

• How to read for college
• How to take research notes
• How to use sources in your writing
• Tools for note taking and annotations
• Mobile apps for notes and annotations
• Assistive technology
• How to cite your sources

Be Prepared: Keep track of which notes are direct quotes, which are summary, and which are your own thoughts. For example, enclose direct quotes in quotation marks, and enclose your own thoughts in brackets. That way you'll never be confused when you're writing.

Be Clear: Make sure you have noted the source and page number!

Be Organized: Keep your notes organized but in a single place so that you can refer back to notes about other readings at the same time.

Be Consistent: You'll want to find specific notes later, and one way to do that is to be consistent in the way you describe things. If you use consistent terms or tags or keywords, you'll be able to find your way back more easily.

Recording what you find

Take full notes

Whether you take notes on cards, in a notebook, or on the computer, it's vital to record information accurately and completely. Otherwise, you won't be able to trust your own notes. Most importantly, distinguish between (1) direct quotation; (2) paraphrases and summaries of the text; and (3) your own thoughts. On a computer, you have many options for making these distinctions, such as parentheses, brackets, italic or bold text, etc.

Know when to quote, paraphrase, and summarize

• Summarize when you only need to remember the main point of the passage, chapter, etc.
• Paraphrase when you are able to able to clearly state a source's point or meaning in your own words.
• Quote exactly when you need the author's exact words or authority as evidience to back up your claim. You may also want to be sure and use the author's exact wording, either because they stated their point so well, or because you want to refute that point and need to demonstrate you aren't misrepresenting the author's words.

Get the context right

Don't just record the author's words or ideas; be sure and capture the context and meaning that surrounds those ideas as well. It can be easy to take a short quote from an author that completely misrepresents his or her actual intentions if you fail to take the context into account. You should also be sure to note when the author is paraphrasing or summarizing another author's point of view--don't accidentally represent those ideas as the ideas of the author.

Example of reading notes

Here is an example of reading notes taken in Evernote, with citation and page numbers noted as well as quotation marks for direct quotes and brackets around the reader's own thoughts.

• << Previous: How to read for college
• Next: How to use sources in your writing >>
• Last Updated: Feb 7, 2024 12:22 PM
• URL: https://gouldguides.carleton.edu/activereading

Questions? Contact [email protected]

Powered by Springshare.

• Utility Menu

• ARC Scheduler
• Student Employment
• Note-taking

Think about how you take notes during class. Do you use a specific system? Do you feel that system is working for you? What could be improved? How might taking notes during a lecture, section, or seminar be different online versus in the classroom? 

Adjust how you take notes during synchronous vs. asynchronous learning (slightly) . 

First, let’s distinguish between  synchronous  and  asynchronous  instruction. Synchronous classes are live with the instructor and students together, and asynchronous instruction is material recorded by the professor for viewing by students at another time. Sometimes asynchronous instruction may include a recording of a live Zoom session with the instructor and students. 

With this distinction in mind,  here are some tips on how to take notes during both types of instruction:

Taking notes during live classes (synchronous instruction).

Taking notes when watching recorded classes (asynchronous instruction)., check in with yourself., if available, annotate lecture slides during lecture., consider writing notes by hand., review your notes., write down questions..

Below are some common and effective note-taking techniques: 

Cornell Notes

If you are looking for help with using some of the tips and techniques described above, come to the ARC’s note-taking workshop, offered several times every semester.

Register for ARC Workshops

Accordion style.

• Assessing Your Understanding
• Building Your Academic Support System
• Common Class Norms
• Effective Learning Practices
• First-Year Students
• How to Prepare for Class
• Interacting with Instructors
• Know and Honor Your Priorities
• Memory and Attention
• Minimizing Zoom Fatigue
• Office Hours
• Perfectionism
• Scheduling Time
• Senior Theses
• Study Groups
• Tackling STEM Courses
• Test Anxiety

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9 Organizing Research: Taking and Keeping Effective Notes

Once you’ve located the right primary and secondary sources, it’s time to glean all the information you can from them. In this chapter, you’ll first get some tips on taking and organizing notes. The second part addresses how to approach the sort of intermediary assignments (such as book reviews) that are often part of a history course.

Honing your own strategy for organizing your primary and secondary research is a pathway to less stress and better paper success. Moreover, if you can find the method that helps you best organize your notes, these methods can be applied to research you do for any of your classes.

Before the personal computing revolution, most historians labored through archives and primary documents and wrote down their notes on index cards, and then found innovative ways to organize them for their purposes. When doing secondary research, historians often utilized (and many still do) pen and paper for taking notes on secondary sources. With the advent of digital photography and useful note-taking tools like OneNote, some of these older methods have been phased out – though some persist. And, most importantly, once you start using some of the newer techniques below, you may find that you are a little “old school,” and might opt to integrate some of the older techniques with newer technology.

Whether you choose to use a low-tech method of taking and organizing your notes or an app that will help you organize your research, here are a few pointers for good note-taking.

Principles of note-taking

• If you are going low-tech, choose a method that prevents a loss of any notes. Perhaps use one spiral notebook, or an accordion folder, that will keep everything for your project in one space. If you end up taking notes away from your notebook or folder, replace them—or tape them onto blank pages if you are using a notebook—as soon as possible.
• If you are going high-tech, pick one application and stick with it. Using a cloud-based app, including one that you can download to your smart phone, will allow you to keep adding to your notes even if you find yourself with time to take notes unexpectedly.
• When taking notes, whether you’re using 3X5 note cards or using an app described below, write down the author and a shortened title for the publication, along with the page number on EVERY card. We can’t emphasize this point enough; writing down the bibliographic information the first time and repeatedly will save you loads of time later when you are writing your paper and must cite all key information.
• Include keywords or “tags” that capture why you thought to take down this information in a consistent place on each note card (and when using the apps described below). If you are writing a paper about why Martin Luther King, Jr., became a successful Civil Rights movement leader, for example, you may have a few theories as you read his speeches or how those around him described his leadership. Those theories—religious beliefs, choice of lieutenants, understanding of Gandhi—might become the tags you put on each note card.
• Note-taking applications can help organize tags for you, but if you are going low tech, a good idea is to put tags on the left side of a note card, and bibliographic info on the right side.

Organizing research- applications that can help

Using images in research.

• If you are in an archive: make your first picture one that includes the formal collection name, the box number, the folder name and call numbe r and anything else that would help you relocate this information if you or someone else needed to. Do this BEFORE you start taking photos of what is in the folder.
• If you are photographing a book or something you may need to return to the library: take a picture of all the front matter (the title page, the page behind the title with all the publication information, maybe even the table of contents).

Once you have recorded where you find it, resist the urge to rename these photographs. By renaming them, they may be re-ordered and you might forget where you found them. Instead, use tags for your own purposes, and carefully name and date the folder into which the photographs were automatically sorted. There is one free, open-source program, Tropy , which is designed to help organize photos taken in archives, as well as tag, annotate, and organize them. It was developed and is supported by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. It is free to download, and you can find it here: https://tropy.org/ ; it is not, however, cloud-based, so you should back up your photos. In other cases, if an archive doesn’t allow photography (this is highly unlikely if you’ve made the trip to the archive), you might have a laptop on hand so that you can transcribe crucial documents.

Using note or project-organizing apps

When you have the time to sit down and begin taking notes on your primary sources, you can annotate your photos in Tropy. Alternatively, OneNote, which is cloud-based, can serve as a way to organize your research. OneNote allows you to create separate “Notebooks” for various projects, but this doesn’t preclude you from searching for terms or tags across projects if the need ever arises. Within each project you can start new tabs, say, for each different collection that you have documents from, or you can start new tabs for different themes that you are investigating. Just as in Tropy, as you go through taking notes on your documents you can create your own “tags” and place them wherever you want in the notes.

Another powerful, free tool to help organize research, especially secondary research though not exclusively, is Zotero found @ https://www.zotero.org/ . Once downloaded, you can begin to save sources (and their URL) that you find on the internet to Zotero. You can create main folders for each major project that you have and then subfolders for various themes if you would like. Just like the other software mentioned, you can create notes and tags about each source, and Zotero can also be used to create bibliographies in the precise format that you will be using. Obviously, this function is super useful when doing a long-term, expansive project like a thesis or dissertation.

How History is Made: A Student’s Guide to Reading, Writing, and Thinking in the Discipline Copyright © 2022 by Stephanie Cole; Kimberly Breuer; Scott W. Palmer; and Brandon Blakeslee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Writing a Research Paper: 5. Taking Notes & Documenting Sources

• Getting Started
• 1. Topic Ideas
• 2. Thesis Statement & Outline
• 3. Appropriate Sources
• 4. Search Techniques
• 5. Taking Notes & Documenting Sources
• 6. Evaluating Sources
• 7. Citations & Plagiarism
• 8. Writing Your Research Paper

Taking Notes & Documenting Sources

How to take notes and document sources.

Note taking is a very important part of the research process.  It will help you:

• keep your ideas and sources organized
• effectively use the information you find
• avoid plagiarism

When you find good information to be used in your paper:

• Read the text critically, think how it is related to your argument, and decide how you are going to use it in your paper.
• Select the material that is relevant to your argument.
• Copy the original text for direct quotations or briefly summarize the content in your own words, and make note of how you will use it.
• Copy the citation or publication information of the source.
• << Previous: 4. Search Techniques
• Next: 6. Evaluating Sources >>
• Last Updated: Sep 26, 2023 5:26 PM
• URL: https://kenrick.libguides.com/writing-a-research-paper

Reading and making notes

• Managing academic reading
• Introduction

Making note-making more effective

Making your notes user-friendly, using linear notes and spidergrams, taking notes in lectures, annotating pdfs on-screen.

• Reading e-books for university study
• Using and evaluating websites

Useful links for reading and notemaking

• Study Advice Helping students to achieve study success with guides, video tutorials, seminars and one-to-one advice sessions.

• Reading and note making (video) Video tutorial from the Study Advice team
• Online reading lists: a guide for students Everything you need to know about using your online reading lists.
• E-books guide Everything you need to know about finding, accessing and using e-books for university study.
• The best file formats and how to use them An interactive guide by the Technology Enhanced Learning team on the key features of alternative formats (such as PDF and ePUB), and how to make the most of these in developing your reading habits.
• How to read 10 books in an hour Tips on skimming, scanning and futureproofing from the University of Cambridge Library
• Critical Thinking A short video on Critical Thinking that the BBC have prepared in partnership with The Open University

Good note-making...

• enables you to avoid unintentional plagiarism
• helps you to focus on what is important in what you are reading or hearing
• helps you to understand and remember material, and make connections
• helps you to structure the assignments you're researching
• provides a personal record of what you've learnt (more useful than your lecturer's or friends' notes) and records your questions and ideas
• sets you up for exam revision

There can be problems...

• note-making can distract you from listening to lectures
• note-making can put additional stress on those who do not write naturally
• you can end up with so many notes that you have to spend twice the amount of time going through them again to find out the important points!

Developing more effective note-making practices will help you to avoid these problems, and make your studying less stressful and time-consuming.

• Critical note taking (video) A brief screencast on making your notes more useful and effective.
• Critical notetaking (transcript) Read the transcript

The two key principles are [1] to be meticulous and accurate, and [2] to be active rather than passive.

The most effective note-taking is  active not passive . Active learning helps you to make meaning from what you learn: passive learning is allowing yourself to be an empty vessel into which knowledge is poured with no way of organising or making meaning from it. You are less likely to remember things you learn passively, which means more checking your notes while you're writing assignments, and more repeated effort when you come to revise.

Passive  note-taking includes:

• underlining words
• cutting and pasting from online documents
• trying to write everything you hear in a lecture
• copying slides from the screen
• copying lots of direct quotes rather than putting the ideas in your own words 
• writing notes on everything you read, because you're not sure what will turn out to be important 
• not evaluating or criticising the sources you use, but just accepting them as suitable evidence 

Active  note-taking means:

• thinking about what you want to get out of your research before you start
• looking for answers to any questions you may have about the topic
• looking for connections within the topic you're studying, and to other topics on your course
• writing notes mostly in your own words - your own explanation of what something says or means
• recording direct quotes only when it's important to have the exact words that someone else has used (i.e. when  how  they say something is as significant as  what  they say) 

• Make your notes  brief  and be  selective
• Keep them  well-spaced  so you can see individual points and add more details later if necessary
• Show the relationships  between the main points (link with a line along which you write how they relate to each other, for instance)
• Use  your own words  to summarise - imagine someone has asked you "so what did x say about this?" and write down your reply
• Illustrations, examples and diagrams  can help to put ideas in a practical context 
• Make them memorable  using: colour, pattern, highlighting and underlining
• Read through  to make sure they're clear - will you still understand them when you come to revise?
• File with care ! - use a logical system so you can find them when you need them, but keep it simple or you won't use it.

These two forms of note-taking are useful for different things.

Linear notes

Linear notes are what most people are used to doing. They are written down a page with headings and subheadings. They should have plenty of room for detail.

Here are some suggestions for making linear notes more useful.

• Use loads of HEADINGS for main ideas and concepts
• Use subheadings for points within those ideas
• Stick to one point per line
• Underline key words
• You can use numbering to keep yourself organised
• Use abbreviations - and don't worry about using full sentences
• Leave plenty of SPACE - for adding detail and for easy reading

Spidergrams

Spider diagrams are on one page and are good for showing structure and organising your ideas. They are sometimes called mindmaps, which indicates how they are good for making connections clear and visual.

• They keep your notes on one page - so you're less likely to ramble
• They show the main points at a glance
• They keep points grouped together - good for essay structure
• They clearly show where there are gaps which need more research

To make a spidergram:

• Use whole side of paper - A4 at least!
• Put the subject in the centre
• Use one branch per main point - radiating outwards
• Don't start by making your points too big - you will need more space than you think
• You can add how the points are connected on the joining spokes 
• Make it large enough - enough space to add detail
• Add smaller branches for detail & examples
• Summarise just enough to remind you of point - details and definitions can be added as footnotes
• Label with the source

Try the interactive resource, Notemaker , below to practice your notemaking

Trying to listen, think, read from slides, and write notes at the same time is not just difficult - it's plain impossible! So cut down the amount of notes you take in lectures and do more listening:

What you do before and after lectures can be as important as what you do during them. If you can anticipate the main points, you will find the lecture easier to understand, and you will have a better idea of when something is worth taking a note of. So:

Before the lecture...

• Think about the title and outline description of the lecture and how this connects to the rest of the module
• Think about what you know about the topic already, and what you expect or hope to learn from the lecture
• If it's a completely new topic, try to get a basic idea of what it's about beforehand - read an introductory paragraph from a textbook or encyclopaedia, for instance. 

During the lecture...

• Listen for clues  to the shape or structure of the lecture to help you to organise your notes, for instance: "Today we shall be looking at…" "I am going to discuss three main aspects…" "Now I want to move on to…" "I do want to emphasise…"  "To sum up…"
• Identify key words - for instance, notice when words or phrases are being repeated. Underline or circle in your notes any words that seem to be really significant. Are there particular words that seem to sum up the overall message? (For instance, 'oppression' or 'conflict' or 'solution'.)
• Be an active listener - not a sponge - try to connect what is being said to what you already know (this is where the preparation bit comes in handy!). Ask yourself, do I agree? How does it fit in with what I already knew? Am I surprised ? If not, why not? How did she get to that conclusion?

After the lecture...

• Put some time aside soon after the lecture to sit somewhere quiet and consider what you have just learnt. Summarise and write what you think were the main points in a few sentences. Add anything you need or want to find out more about, and any questions it raised in your mind.
• Follow up anything that you think really important - research the answers yourself, discuss it with a friend, make a list of questions to raise if you have a seminar on the topic, ask your lecturer if you're really confused and can't find the answers elsewhere.
• Then file your notes away carefully so you can find them when you need them for assignments or revision.

Online journal articles, eBooks and documents often open as PDFs. You can annotate these directly on-screen, and save your annotated version.

The easiest way to do this uses Adobe Acrobat. This offers two basic annotating tools, found in the task bar at the top of the screen: highlighting and the ability to add comments.

You will need to ensure you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your device; it is free to download.

When you have opened the PDF in your browser, click on the 'Download' icon on the top right-hand side of the document, then 'Open with', making sure Adobe Reader is selected. When you have finished reading and annotating, choose 'Save as' from the File menu to save it to your home-drive or another location.

Evernote also offers the capacity to annotate PDFs, as well as providing other useful note-making and record-keeping functions.  

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How to code and organize research notes for analysis like a pro

15 Minute Read

Conducting high quality, rigorous research is tough, regardless of how seasoned you are, because each research project is completely unique. In addition to actually doing the research itself, aggregating and organizing research notes can be overwhelming. 

Making sense of research data during synthesis and writing up a research report takes a lot of time. And if you don't organize your research notes and set yourself up for success early on, it will take even longer. You’ll miss out on important observations that will slow down your analysis and impact the quality of your research findings.

Taking the time to code and organize your research notes is key to avoid feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data. In this article, we’ll share some practical tips to set you up for doing high quality analysis and synthesis. 

Re-Organize, Re-Group, Re-Compile: A method for making meaning out of mess.

You must be wondering - organize, group and compile make sense. But what does the 'Re' mean? This is a recursive approach to research. You cast a wide net to gather as many ideas and data points as you can when conducting your research. Don’t filter the data or try to make sense of it prematurely.  

This data-gathering stage is where you pull in qualitative data, like interview transcripts with direct quotes from a user interview analysis and/or observations from a user researcher’s notes. Only once you’ve collected all of your data do you start analysis.

It’s useful to timebox synthesis to a day or two, depending on the size of your study. Because of how fresh the data needs to be in your mind, it isn’t the type of thing you can span over weeks. Ideally, this process can be done with a teammate, but it can also be a solo activity. 

Break down information into smaller pieces of data that might become sub-topics, and then cluster that data into groups that display likeness or tension. Group and regroup that data to sharpen it and you’ll start to recognize recurring patterns or themes using a grounded theory approach. 

Don’t think about it too much, these groups aren’t set it stone, so just go with your gut. Later on, we’ll talk about how color coding and tags can augment you here.

 Once the initial cluster analysis is done, you begin to dive deeper into the data. Your research hasn't quite crossed the chasm to become anything meaningful quite yet, but you might start to sense emerging insights. During this messy middle stage of analysis, data still appears to be a bunch of disparate observations, anecdotes, and verbatims bunched into subtopics.

You may feel the need to do additional research as some points need to be elaborated further, or you want to add additional points. Continue to follow the above method again if you do bring in more data. 

Using physical or digital research notes

This process can be done with physical sticky notes or digital sticky notes . Some researchers prefer working outside of the physical limitations of a screen and to manipulate and marinade with the data in person. I’m a big fan of the physical war room, but there are a lot of upsides to working data digitally. Using tools designed specifically for this process, you won’t lose track of where data came from and will save time otherwise wasted writing and manually coding sticky notes.

Whether you opt for physical or digital notes, continue to regroup your data into sub-topics and then topics, until you feel confident with the higher level themes that are emerging.  

Applying meaning to research notes with color and tags

Coloring and tagging, otherwise known as “coding” in research, are effective ways to organize research notes and assign meaning to pieces of data. They are helpful as you start to pull apart and apply different lenses to your data during the synthesis process. 

Color as a visual cue

Color can be a powerful visual cue to see how patterns distribute across your themes. For example, using a unique color for each participant or persona type can reveal an interesting visual that becomes a nugget of an emerging insight. 

How heavily are you influencing one theme by a certain persona type or participant?

You can also assign a color to sentiment and see how positive or negative emotions are distributed across or concentrated in a particular product experience or workflow. This too can be done with either physical or digital sticky notes. 

Global versus project tags

You can think of tags in two buckets: global or project-based. Some tags will be universally applicable to any research, while others will surface during analysis and be completely unique to that dataset. 

For example, you may decide to code data across all research projects with persona type, like “Parent” or “Teacher.” Or you may get more specific and assign it to a participant as well, like “P1” or “T2.” You might also decide as a research organization to adopt tags like “Pain Point”, “Motivation”, “Goal”, or “Need.”

An example of a tag that might organically reveal itself in the data would be “Inequity”, “Age appropriateness”, or “Student interaction.” Notice that these are much more specific.

You can code data physically on sticky notes by simply writing the tag in the bottom of each note. However, there are constraints to this method, like if one note should be coded by several different tags and fits into multiple themes. In this scenario, you can duplicate the note.

If this process of coding data sounds tedious and time consuming, it certainly can be. But it’s also important. Turning over every stone and marinating in the data is important to fully immerse yourself into the synthesis process. 

Create your own AI-powered templates for better, faster research synthesis. Discover new customer insights from data instantly.

The top 10 things Notably shipped in 2023 and themes for 2024.

Using notably to code and organize research notes.

Notably is designed specifically for a research workflow, so you can speed up the tedious parts of coding and slow down to find meaningful insights.  

Notably has four sections in a research project: Info, Data, Analysis, and Insights. 

The Info tab serves as a space to document your research plan and goals. It can also be where you document the global and project tags used along with their meaning. This helps the team stay on track and on the same page, as well as orient any stakeholders or coworkers to the project. 

The Data tab is where you organize your raw research data, including written observations, video and audio recordings, photos, and more. This is where you start the process of coding data, highlighting important parts and tagging them with your global or project tags. Each highlight turns into digital sticky notes on the canvas and a row in a table in the analysis section.  

The Analysis tab is where you begin making sense of your notes. This is where you apply the method we discussed earlier of re-organizing, re-grouping, and re-compiling your notes. In this workspace you can group your data into “themes”, recolor your data by different criteria, as well as use AI to run a sentiment analysis from your notes. As you continue grouping and regrouping your data, patterns will start to emerge which will inform your research insights.

In the Insights tab, you can begin to develop thematic takeaways from your research.  What does the data mean, and why does it matter? Each insight allows you to add evidence from your data to support your conclusions. This is especially helpful once you begin to button up your research into a report, to then share with your team and stakeholders. The thematic takeaways you discover through your research allow you to know what future research needs to be done to expand on topics, which direction you may need to pivot to, and most importantly to develop a plan to better benefit your users and customers.  

With best research practices already baked into the foundation of Notably, you and your team can speed up your research process, and develop better, stronger insights to share. Find out more about Notably here: https://www.notably.ai/

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How to Take Notes for Your Research Paper

Last Updated: October 7, 2021 References

This article was co-authored by Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed. . Alexander Ruiz is an Educational Consultant and the Educational Director of Link Educational Institute, a tutoring business based in Claremont, California that provides customizable educational plans, subject and test prep tutoring, and college application consulting. With over a decade and a half of experience in the education industry, Alexander coaches students to increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence while achieving skills and the goal of achieving skills and higher education. He holds a BA in Psychology from Florida International University and an MA in Education from Georgia Southern University. This article has been viewed 19,832 times.

As you proceed in giving shape to your research paper, you’ll likely find that you have a wide range of source materials to consult, read and take notes from. As a matter of fact, taking notes to prepare your paper, either to support and back up your argument, or to provide some kind of disagreement, is important, and so is the form of the notes you take. This how-to guide will help you to learn how to take good notes using three different techniques.

Using Direct Quotation

• For instance, in doing research on the difference between poetry and prose, you might tend to quote a passage from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “A Defence of Poetry.” Since the distinction is succinctly stated there, a paraphrase would perhaps be a bit longer than the original, and probably less interestingly stated. Material as such ought to be quoted verbatim (directly): A poem is the very image of life expressed in the eternal truth. There is this difference between a story and a poem, that a story is a catalogue of detached facts, which have no other connection than time, place, circumstance, cause and effect; the other is the creation of actions according to unchangeable forms of human nature, as existing in the mind of the Creator, which is itself the image of all other minds.

Using Paraphrasing

• For example, in reading for a paper on economics, you frequently run across a number of tables of statistical data. Such tables should be quoted directly in entirety if all the items in them pertain to the specific topic you are exploring. There is no time to waste in copying parts of the tables that are not relevant to your study. A single line from the table may be all that is needed.

Using Summary/Commentary

Expert Q&A

• You need index cards or blank sheets, or a computer-based file Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
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• ↑ Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed.. Academic Tutor. Expert Interview. 18 June 2020.
• Downing, S. (2011). On Course: Strategies for creating Success in College and in Life. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (7th edition ed.). (2009). New York: The Modern Language Association of America.
• Murphy, E. E. (1985). Writing and Researching Term Papers and Reports: A New Guide for Students. Canada: Bantam Books, Inc.
• Strunk, W. (1959). The Elements of Style. New York.
• Van Blerkom, D. (2009). College Study Skills: Becoming a Strategic Learner. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

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The best way to take notes at university

Which note-taking method is the best do you prefer handwritten notes or a digital application let’s find out the best way to take notes for you.

Grace McCabe

Taking effective notes is the cornerstone of academic success at university. It involves having the right tools, listening actively and writing concisely. But finding the right note-taking method is the first step.  

Note-taking methods  

The cornell method  .

The Cornell Method is a note-taking technique that involves dividing your page into two columns: a larger one for main notes and a smaller one for cues or questions. During a lecture, jot down your main points, then return to your notes and add any additional queries later. Then summarise key points at the bottom of the page. This method encourages active engagement with the material during and after your lessons.  

Outline Method  

The Outline Method involves organising notes hierarchically, starting with main topics and subtopics. Each level of information is represented by headings, bullet points or numbering, creating a structured outline of the material. This method is effective for breaking down complex information into manageable sections and identifying relationships between different concepts.  

Mapping Method  

The Mapping Method uses visual representations such as diagrams or mind maps to illustrate the relationships between different ideas. Concepts are connected with lines or arrows, creating a visual map of your content. This method is beneficial for visual learners and can help you see the big picture of a topic while also identifying key details.  

Charting Method  

With the Charting Method, information is organised into tables or charts for easy comparison and contrast. This method is particularly useful for organising data, creating timelines or summarising lists of information. By presenting information in a structured format, the Charting Method helps you identify patterns and trends more efficiently.  

Sentence Method  

The Sentence Method involves writing complete sentences that summarise key points or ideas from a lecture or research. This method focuses on capturing information in a narrative form, making it easier to understand and retain. By summarising information in your own words, you reinforce your understanding of the material.  

Annotation Method  

In the Annotation Method, you take notes directly on lecture slides, textbooks or other course materials. You highlight keywords or important information and use abbreviations, add comments or annotations to clarify concepts. This method allows for active engagement with the material and helps you focus on key points while reading or listening during seminars.  

Flow Method  

The Flow Method involves capturing information in a continuous stream of consciousness, without worrying about structure or organisation. This method is useful for brainstorming ideas or jotting down thoughts quickly. By allowing your ideas to flow freely, you can explore connections between important points and generate new insights.  

Once you find the best method for you, you can then move on to decide how you want to make notes. Do you prefer the tactile feel of pen and paper or the convenience of digital tools?  

Should you handwrite your notes?  

Many students find that handwriting notes helps them retain information better.

Cognitive benefits  

Writing by hand engages more cognitive processes than typing. It slows you down, allowing you to process information in your own words and commit it to memory.

Personalisation  

Handwritten notes can be customised to suit your learning style. You can use different colours, underline and add drawings, formulae and symbols, making the information more memorable.

Reduced distractions  

Using pen and paper eliminates the distractions that come with digital devices. You’re less likely to be tempted by social media or other online distractions during lectures.

Five essential studying tips for students  How to study to get the best results in exams  How to manage your time as a university student 

Digital Notes  

Taking comprehensive notes during university lectures is often a challenge, with the pressure to keep up with your lecturer while ensuring your notes are clear and coherent. In such situations, digital note apps or typing your notes up can be easier and many students are choosing this option.

Efficiency  

Typing is generally faster than writing by hand, allowing you to capture more information during lectures.

Organisation  

Digital notes can be easily organised and edited. You can also create folders, use tags and employ search functions to quickly find specific information later.

Accessibility  

Digital notes can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. You can even sync your notes across devices and never have to worry about losing them.

Note-taking Apps  

If you do find that digital note-taking suits your learning style, there are many applications available .

A popular choice for its versatility, Evernote allows you to create text, audio and image notes. It’s great for organising research materials and syncing across devices.

Microsoft’s OneNote simulates a digital notebook, allowing you to type, draw and annotate notes. It’s particularly useful for collaborative projects and integrates well with other Microsoft Office apps.

Notability  

This app is favoured by many for its handwriting features, allowing you to write, draw and highlight with ease. It’s great for students who prefer the feel of handwriting but want the convenience of digital notes.

Google Keep  

Google Keep is free to any users with Google accounts. It allows you to turn your handwritten notes into digital files through its interface, share lists and to-do lists, all while tracking your tasks. It’s particularly popular for group projects or collaborative studying.

Simplenote  

Simplenote uses a minimalist design to offer users a clutter-free note-taking experience. Compatible across various platforms including Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS and Linux, it is a great app if you need to sync your notes across multiple devices.

GoodNotes  

GoodNotes offers helpful features such as Spellcheck and Word Complete, which automatically correct mistakes as you write, allowing you to concentrate on your thoughts. It’s accessible on various devices, including laptops, tablets and phones, ensuring your entire note library is easily accessible wherever you are. Plus, your notes are securely saved and synced across devices, so you never have to worry about losing them.  

Alternative note-taking tips  

You can use alternative approaches and additional note-taking tips to really highlight your topics and improve your study skills. Some of these are great during lectures; others can help you with your study notes in groups or solo sessions.  

Sketchnoting  

Instead of traditional written notes, consider using a sketchnoting approach. Combine words and visuals, such as doodles, icons and diagrams to represent key concepts. This creative method can enhance memory retention and make note-taking more enjoyable.  

Voice notes  

Experiment with recording audio notes during lectures or study sessions, where allowed, using a voice recorder app on your smartphone or computer. This can be particularly useful for capturing detailed explanations or discussions that might be difficult to write down quickly. There are many programmes that can then turn the recording into written notes that you can adapt into presentations, flashcards and more.  

Flashcards  

Flashcards are a strong method for reviewing key concepts and definitions. Write the term or concept on one side and the definition or explanation on the other. Flashcards are a great tool for self-testing and reinforcing learning.  

Colour coding  

Incorporate colour coding into your notes by using different coloured pens, highlighters or digital text formatting. Assign specific colours to different categories or themes to visually distinguish between them and aid in recall.  

Peer collaboration  

Collaborate with classmates to create shared notes or study guides. Divide up the material and take turns summarising and compiling notes. Sharing perspectives and insights can deepen your understanding of the material and provide additional study resources.  

Reflection prompts  

Integrate reflection prompts into your notes to encourage critical thinking and deeper engagement with the material. Ask yourself questions such as “How does this concept relate to real-life examples?” or “What are the implications of this idea?”

Multi-sensory approach  

Engage multiple senses in your note-taking process by incorporating tactile elements, such as textured paper or sticky notes, or by listening to background music or ambient sounds that enhance concentration and focus.  

Emotional annotation  

Use emojis, symbols or brief annotations to capture your emotional responses or reactions to the material. This can add a personal touch to your notes and help you connect with the content on a deeper level.  

Experiment with different methods and find what works best for you and your degree subject. You may find that one approach is great for lectures, another for seminars and a final note-taking strategy for solo study.  

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Nuclear Fusion R&D In 2024: Getting Down To The Gritty Details

To those who have kept tabs on nuclear fusion research the past decades beyond the articles and soundbites in news outlets, it’s probably clear just how much progress has been made, and how many challenges still remain. Yet since not that many people are into plasma physics, every measure of progress, such as most recently by the South Korean KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) tokamak, is met generally by dismissive statements about nuclear fusion always being a certain number of decades away. Looking beyond this in coverage such as the article by Science Alert about this achievement by KSTAR we can however see quite a few of these remaining challenges being touched upon.

Recently KSTAR managed to generate 100 million degrees C plasma and maintain this for 48 seconds, a significant boost over its previous record from 2021 of 30 seconds, partially due to the new divertors that were installed. These divertors are essential for removing impurities from the plasma, yet much like the inner wall of the reactor vessel, these plasma-facing materials ( PFM ) bear the brunt of the super-hot plasma and any plasma instabilities, as well as the constant neutron flux from the fusion products. KSTAR now features tungsten divertors, which has become a popular material choice for this component.

Researching the optimal PFMs, as well as plasma containment modes and methods to suppress plasma instabilities are just some of the challenges that form the road still ahead before commercial fusion can commence.

High-Confinement Mode

The high-confinement (or H-mode ) operating regime of tokamaks was first discovered in 1982 during experiments with the German ASDEX tokamak. H-mode differs from the retroactively named L-mode (for low-confinement) in that it features a much more stable plasma edge, due to as of yet unknown mechanisms that take effect when the plasma is heated to above a certain level.

One issue with H-mode is however the occasional edge magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities, called edge-localized modes ( ELM ). These occur as disruptions in the otherwise stable edge barrier in H-mode, forming a sudden burst of plasma that can eject up to 20% of the plasma’s energy into the nearby PFM. This causes damage to the wall and divertors in the form of erosion (ablation) and has been a major research topic for the past decades, with control methods like resonant magnetic perturbations ( RMP ) being applied as early as 2003. In 2011 KSTAR became one of the tokamaks that had managed to successfully suppress (Type I) ELMs using non-axisymmetric magnetic perturbations. 

Beyond causing PFM damage, these instabilities in H-mode are also problematic in that they reduce the efficiency of the reactor, due to heat and other losses that then have to be compensated for. Yet the corollary of such a stable edge in H-mode with Type I ELM suppression is that the removal of impurities and heat from the plasma becomes very difficult. This is where the much smaller, Type II ELMs are relevant, as they provide a means to transport impurities across the edge barrier without threatening the PFM.

This was simulated and experimentally tested in the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak in 2022, with the results by G.F. Harrer et al. published in Physical Review Letters . Suggested is an operating regime for ITER and similar tokamak fusion reactors in which these Type II ELMs are used as a functional feature of the plasma, whereas Type I ELMs would continue to be suppressed. As for whether RMPs are the ideal way to suppress Type I ELMs, this too remains the subject of research.

Greenwald Density

Beyond H-mode and ELMs, tokamaks also have to deal with what is named the Greenwald Density Limit ( GDL ), named after Martin Greenwald , whose 2002 review article ( PDF ) in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion is worth a read for a detailed summary of the subject. The short version is that it pertains to the plasma density, with each fusion reactor having an observable lower and upper limit to this density. Once the limit is reached and exceeded in a tokamak, the reaction will transition from H- to L-mode, along with other negative effects . Of note is that the scaling of these limits seems to depend on a wide variety of factors, far beyond merely the size of the reactor, such as the fueling method.

The Greenwald limit is more easily found with stellarator fusion reactors, as these do not display the same strong negative response to exceeding this limit. Instead they show a soft limit, or quench, that sees the plasma temperature decaying. The density limit in stellarators has been found to be significantly higher (up to double) than in comparably sized tokamaks, giving the former an edge over tokamaks, as well as in terms of plasma stability. Despite this, it is thought that these limitations of tokamaks can be compensated for, with a 2024 article by S. Ding and colleagues in Nature detailing a high-density, high-confinement tokamak plasma regime in the General Atomics DIII-D tokamak.

Can’t Rush Science

If you ask an engineer how long it’ll take to build something, they can likely give you a fairly accurate estimate, as well as an idea of the required materials and manpower. If you ask a plasma physics scientist how long it’ll take to build a nuclear fusion reactor that has an energy gain (Q) of 8 or better, they’ll likely give you a quaint look. If you’re lucky they’ll humor you and introduce you to the wonderful world of nuclear fusion related research papers, especially those pertaining to ITER-related research.

During the century since nuclear fusion was discovered , scientists have at some points thought that they were close to tackling nuclear fusion on Earth. The most pertinent being the Z-pinch machine during the 1950s, which was the moment when the solution seemed so close. This was also the moment when the exciting world of plasma physics began to be more fully revealed to the world of science, along with plasma instabilities, heat losses and a rush to find materials that could cope with the neutron flux and heat exposure inside the then brand new tokamak reactor design.

Would larger tokamaks work better? This was just one question of many, even as fundamental research on plasma physics continued and the tokamaks at research institutes around the world underwent one revision after another based on newly gained knowledge and new directions in research. Along the edges stellarators continued to get some love too, especially once computer simulations became powerful enough to figure out an appropriate magnetic field configuration. Much like the plasma inside these experimental fusion reactors, so too did progress keep flowing.

Although sideshows like inertial confinement fusion keep stealing the show despite being anything but practical for energy production, it is clear that we are lightyears beyond where we were with nuclear fusion research in the 1980s, as well as the 2000s. We cannot say yet when the moment will come when the first Q >8 fusion reactor will come online, with sustained tritium breeding and all of the other amenities that befit a commercial fusion reactor, but that’s why we are still in the research and development phase.

Maybe it will take another decade, or two. Maybe we’ll have another sad Z-pinch moment where physics throws us another curveball and we have to sigh, collect our shattered self-esteem and waddle back to the drawing board for another shot at the challenge. This is both the thrill and curse of fundamental research and development, with often massive potential rewards, and absolutely zero guarantee of reaping any of them, other than learning so incredibly much along the way.

36 thoughts on “ Nuclear Fusion R&D In 2024: Getting Down To The Gritty Details ”

Can’t rush science (except during wartime)

Science is like tribbles, feed’em you get results, starve’em not so much. If you want practical fusion in 20 years a worldwide, coordinated effort and 10 trillion a year might get you there, don’t want to spend that much? You’ll have to wait.

That usually ends in “boom”.

You can’t rush it, but you can slow it down by cutting the funding – and by creating high profile “dummy” projects that eat up whatever funding remains without accomplishing much anything.

or during a global pandemic.

science moves quickly when ethics oversight mechanisms are switched off and the federal government is writing you blank checks.

I’m not sure they were “switched off” so much as put on high alert to give absolute priority and the speediest possible progress to one or two specific things over and above everything else.

Citation needed

I for one look forward to practical fusion reactors in only 20 or so years. Wait, you already mentioned dismissive statements, so I’ll show myself out.

(in all seriousness, I do look forward to seeing a sustained reaction that output more energy than what it needs)

Open the curtains and look up. There’s one going nicely there. Of course, we didn’t build that one so we can’t claim the credit, but it’s there’s for the using.

Perhaps we can shoot bags of money into it!

The Saint (1997) showed me the secret to Cold Fusion only needed rearranging of some scraps of paper.

Funny how things like that haven’t come true, and yet every movie about invasive Government spying basically has.

> managed to successfully suppress (Type I) ELMs using non-axisymmetric magnetic perturbations

I bet they managed to prevent side-fumbling as well.

I can never work out if it’s the spurving bearings being in direct line or the hydrocoptic marzlevanes that eliminate side fumbling. Having said that, I’m only a hobbyist not an engineer.

You have to wonder if they’ve tried applying turboencabulator technology to fusion. It’s a crudely conceived idea, but I think it could be brought to perfection here.

All politics aside, for over a decade inthe 70s and 80s, I very closely monitored the Fusion Energy Foundation founded by none other than the uber goofy Lyndon Larouche. They were nonetheless the outlet for updates in the field of interest. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_Energy_Foundation

my guestimate is about 100 years based on various milestones over time. also the amount of time it seems to take to build and operate a tokamak times how many more i think we need. iter claims it will be 2, but i think it will be more like 4 or 5.

i also dont think the fusion startups will play any significant role in the matter. they seem to always be asking for funding while iter drops some of the biggest superconducting coils known to man into its reactor. its really a case of go big or go home. i stopped watching videos about those because every one seemed like an ad for the machine.

Check out the National Ignition Facility.

https://lasers.llnl.gov/

A facility whose primary purpose is the simulation of thermonuclear implosions as just one part of the VERY impressive and extensive US nuclear warhead Stockpile Stewardship program required to develop accurate computer simulations of nuclear weapons to run on the various DOE supercomputers.

Besides potentially allowing the creation of some amazingly specialized and interesting 4th generation nuclear weapons if the comprehensive test ban treaty is ever ended, they allow the repair of our aging warheads and replacement of parts which require replacement while still being confident they’ll work after that’s done without the need to test them.

The construction of the National Ignition Facility began the year after the comprehensive nuke testing ban. What an amazing coincidink, no?

Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons (FGNW): Military effectiveness and collateral effects – February 2, 2008

https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0510071.pdf

3.1 Inertial confinement fusion experiments and FGNW

Inertial confinement fusion (ICF), which basically consists of exploding very small amounts of thermonuclear fuel highly compressed by lasers or other means, enables to study the physics of thermonuclear secondaries in the laboratory (see Fig. 2). While this technique has the potential to be used in a thermonuclear reactor to produce energy, it has primarily been developed as an alternative to the underground testing of nuclear weapons, and as a tool for designing new types of nuclear weapons [1].

Basically, as can be seen by comparing Fig. 1 and 2, ICF reproduces in the laboratory the same arrangement than the one on which two-stage H-bomb are based: the Teller-Ulam principle.

————-

The French version:

Laser Mégajoule (Wikipedia)

Laser Mégajoule (LMJ) is a large laser-based inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research device near Bordeaux France, built by the French nuclear science directorate, Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique (CEA).

Laser Mégajoule plans to deliver over 1 MJ of laser energy to its targets, compressing them to about 100 times the density of lead. It is about half as energetic as its US counterpart, the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Laser Mégajoule is the largest ICF experiment outside the US.

Laser Mégajoule’s primary task will be refining fusion calculations for France’s own nuclear weapons.[1] A portion of the system’s time is set aside for materials science experiments.[2]

Construction of the LMJ took 15 years and cost 3 billion Euros.[3] It was declared operational on 23 October 2014, when it ran its first set of nuclear weapon related experiments.

————

By comparison to the endless, incredibly expensive fusion experiments, how much is being spent on developing these?

Generation IV fission reactors

1. Nuclear waste that remains radioactive for a few centuries instead of millennia 2. 100-300x energy yield from the same amount of nuclear fuel 3. Broader range of fuels, including unencapsulated raw fuels (non-pebble MSR, LFTR). 4. Potential to burn existing nuclear waste and produce electricity: a closed fuel cycle. 5. Improved safety via features such as ambient pressure operation, automatic passive reactor shutdown, and alternate coolants.

Nuclear is still the best option.

No, it’s really not… It’s more than twice as expensive as solar and wind. It’s less modular. Less safe. Has waste disposal issues. Is not falling in price exponentially over time. Has fuel procurement issues. Can not be modified or maintained post hoc. And is subject to e.g. earthquakes and terrorism and extreme weather… and say lack of water in an increasingly drought ridden world… And btw for all you sports fans out there, here’s a statistic you can bet on: we’ve depleted many of the aquifers in the US by e.g. 400 km^3 of water volume… It takes 10 years to permit and build a reactor. It takes 6-24 months to build a solar field, depending on the size. And solar captures 20% of 1.2 GW/km^2, which is not much less energy dense than fission.

And don’t even mention the term “baseload power” to me in this conversation. That term is obsolete and fyi, there’s an energy storage revolution going on with dozens of prototyped technologies and at least a handful in commercial production.

Concerning fusion power, the author is too cynical. The progress is greater than is being reported here in a number of dimensions. My ph.d. is in statistical inference… here’s my inference. Whereas many startups among 60-80 contenders are talking about working prototype reactors in the 2025-2028 time frame, I figure that means 2030 or so. They won’t be commercially viable. From there I think it’ll take 10 years to scale things up and bring something to market… E.g. 2040 for commercialized, deployed fusion power.

Meanwhile there’s very very good reason to believe climate change is going to knock the world off its rocker… e.g. 2040 is also the year when the pH of the ocean falls to a point where the bottom gets ripped out if the marine food chain, the SML on the ocean’s surface disappears and we have uncontrolled evaporation leading to steadily mounting vapor in the atmosphere which is a more potent GHG than CO2…

And also, it’s past the point where we hit 2 deg C of warming. Heat waves are 4x as common and crop failures 4x as common at 1.5 deg C of warming. Heat waves are 13.8x as common and crop failures 20x as common at 2 deg C of warming.

We had the hottest summer in 2000 years last summer at a 95% level of confidence by 0.5 deg C. India and SE Asia had temperatures at or over 100 F for > 28 days during April 2024. The wet bulb effect is starting to boil people alive. Meanwhile this week monkeys are falling dead out of trees in Mexico as they record their hottest temperatures ever. And Mexico City is looking at a complete failure to provide water to its 22 million residents within 2 months.

How’s your Spanish and Hindi and Mandarin and Vietnamese everyone? I hope you’re prepared for e.g. 10% of 2 billion climate refugees between now and 2035. If they stay where they are, they die. Therefore… a certain amount of regional instability is likely to come to a future near you…

I’m not at all clear we’ll make it to 2040 for fusion to ever happen. I could talk about tipping points and feedback cycles for hours and still not finish what I have to say on the matter.

A few choice aphorisms:

“Agriculture is the Achilles Heel of humanity”.

“Scarcity breeds aggression and stupidity breeds scarcity”.

“One year’s lost wheat crop is a disaster. Two years in a row is a recipe for WW3”. (Red Storm Rising, Tom Clancy, anyone?)

“The world is like a lilypad… with every frog in the pond trying to jump to the same lilypad for refuge while expecting every other frog in the pond to sit still”

“The transient response of a positive feedback cycle is an exponential function of time. Avalanches don’t meander. They avalanche”.

” ‘To the victor go the spoils!’ said no rat on any sinking ship, ever! More like ‘There can be only one!’ ”

Humanity’s exploitation of > 1 million years worth of stored sunlight energy in chemical form via combustion within 100 years is tantamount to moving the Earth closer to the sun. Burning 100 million barrels of oil a day releases the same amount of energy into the atmosphere (1%), land (5%), ice(5%) and oceans (91%) as detonating 15 Hiroshima sized nuclear bombs every second of every day. And that’s why we’ve sunk 500 zetajoules, ie 500e21 joules, ie 500 billion trillion joules into the Earth’s oceans… And surprise surprise. Actions have consequences blame Newton. Or find whichever government politician created the Law of Conservation of Momentum and sue them…

>It takes 10 years to permit and build a reactor. It takes 6-24 months to build a solar field

That’s not a fair comparison, because it’s missing half the picture where you also need to build the extended transmission infrastructure, energy storage capacity, and demand side management infrastructure and control systems to deal with the intermittency and availability issues of solar power.

Nuclear power is a drop-in solution to the existing system. Solar is not – as of yet it only works up to a point where it’s still small enough to not cause problems. It took a hundred years to build the power grid as it is, and now you’re looking at building networks of superconducting power lines extending from Algeria to Norway in order to actually make use of renewable power on the same scale.

Fusion has always been “20 years away” for the whole of my life. In June, I am pleased to say I will be starting a new job working as part of the UK’s Fusion program. I genuinly believe it will be a possibility within the remaining years of my career, and I really am looking forward to making it a reality. It’s a matter of “when”, not “if”, and there is still a long way to go before it’s on the same scale as Fission. When you look at how quickly we have adopted Fission, I do not doubt that once it’s proven stable and possible it’ll accelerate adoption in the coming decades. Exciting times!

Genuine question – where is the tritium going to come from to fuel the reactor?

Don’t ask your boss as you will probably get fired.

https://www.iter.org/newsline/-/3852

>a simple physics principle: when a neutron impacts a lithium nucleus, the reaction produces one atom of tritium

Problem with fusion is that the teller ulam and the ways it currently can be achieved needs a high security clearance

You cant just walk in and get all of that thermonuclear bombs research papers and try to port the design to a reactor

No. While there is some overlap, creating a thermonuclear bomb and a fusion reactor are two unrelated tasks.

As someone who worked briefly on Fusion in the 1980’s, I’ve always taken an interest in the progress. I have to admit I had assumed we would be closer to full fusion power by now, driven by the optimism of those I worked with (most who have probably retired without fulfilling their goal. )

However looking back, it was never the physics is holding us back. Yes there are some areas like plasma physics that needed extending (many people forget that in trying to achieve fusion, many other areas of physics have benefited), but the main obstacle was in engineering.

The timescale for advances in those areas were probably underestimated. Things like material science, magnets etc needed improvements, but those are never quick. However the technology has come a long way in a slow incremental fashion. We have capabilities that we could only dream of in the 80s. As an example the computers we worked on were PDP-11’s which had the kind of processing power which a mobile phone user would sneer at. One of my jobs was to simulate a magnetic confinement using banks of 555 timers, today the same job could be done on a pi pico. The ability to model and simulate is light years ahead of where we were, meaning less need to build physical devices

Things like superconducting cables, high magnetic fields, alloys and composites again are today the kind of things that I read in science fiction during the day

Therefore I am confident we are almost there. The hard yards in places like JET have been done. The models are available, what is required is that one more push. But engineering like this is a challenge and time consuming, and will take time. However like most things, once it has been proved it can be done, it is easy to repeat

The question is often asked why fusion, not fission? I have no problem with either, but fusion will always have one big advantage over fission in that it cannot be used in the secondary role of making bomb material. If we are to solve climate change, it is not enough for a few countries to have access to such technology, it needs to be used worldwide. This is something that Fission reactors will never be suitable for. Therefore to ensure we have a baseload to support renewables, for me Fusion is the only real long term solution

Less of a waste problem as well.

This kind of research is extremely valuable, and always worth it, no matter how long it takes, because, as you mentioned, it benefits many other areas of physics, but also of science in general.

Fusion has a *huge* proliferation problem. It will require enormous amounts of Li-6 in order to produce the tritium fuel, both of which are highly strategic materials.

This is also the reason tokamaks will never be the basis of commercial power production, there is simply no way the required amount of fuel can ever be produced economically.

Sounds like you know details I don’t. Tell me more. What I’ve been reading is that deuterium is available in sea water at 1.1 g/m^3 and tritium will be breed and reused on site without a waste product. I understand there are e.g. only 36 kg of tritium in the world right now but I believe several outfits have plans for making it in situ. I think e.g. Helion if I’m not mistaken. Not every reactor even uses tritium of course… but it sounds like the majority do. Sounds like you’re talking about an isotope of lithium as a necessary catalyst? I don’t know much about it… Have you seen though, that e.g. there are large lithium deposits recently identified in Pennsylvania? Also I hear there’s a lot of lithium in coal ash or something like that. I read it a few days ago…

Nice post thanks for it. We see the situation alike.

>The ability to model and simulate is light years ahead of where we were, meaning less need to build physical devices

The W-7X is based on physics modeled on relatively modest computer hardware in the 90’s. That’s 30 years ago. The predecessor W7-AS was completed in 1988 and that was the last design they really did “by hand” without the help of computer simulations.

The W 7-X was supposed to be completed in 2006 but it slipped a further 9 years due to the meager funding and slow work. The inefficiency of having basically no money, and the misdirection of most of the available funds into political “superstar” projects like the ITER, is what has caused decades of delay in the field even as we have gained the tools actually pull it off. We could already be on the third generation of stellarators right now, trying to burn actual fuel plasma.

I look forward to a time when people finally wake up and see the fusion reactor Game for the bureaucratic con it really is.

Billions have been siphoned off into dead end projects that could have gone into genuine plasma physics resesrch.

ITER will cost 60 billion euros over its lifetime and will never produce a watt of net power by design.

The simple question is: where is all the tritium going to come from? Or even the Li-6 required to manufacture that tritium?

ITER management have dropped the plan to test out tritium breeding, the only part of the project which could have advanced fusion power generation research. This is because they tacitly admit it is not feasible.

Stop allowing this charade to contiune.

100 million degrees C? That’s impressive! … Are you sure it isn’t merely 100 million degrees K? 100 million degrees K obviously wouldn’t be nearly as impressive. :)

The reason the sun can contain a continuous fusion reaction is due to a magic force called: GRAVITY! I have doubts that magnetism can achieve the same results as gravity. There are no confinement walls around the sun to damage from instabilities in the plasma field. I think the solar plasma instabilities are called “Solar Flares”, and they too are reasonably controlled by the wonderful magic of: GRAVITY! Find a way to artificially generate gravity adequate to contain the reaction and you might have something.

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