Ellen -
What a fortuitous coincidence! We also had been looking for
articles about note-taking during legal research and had come up
empty. In addition, we, like reference librarians everywhere, have been
faced at the reference desk with scores of patrons who come to us,
clutching little scraps of paper with bits and pieces of information
jotted and squeezed into corners.
Meanwhile, we were also handling research requests from
professors and reporting back on the sources we had checked and the
answers we had found. We had, we knew, learned a lot about what
kinds of information to record during research; we had all sorts of tips
and tricks we could share!
So, we have collaborated on an article about effective note-taking
to be published in the Winter issue of Perspectives: Teaching Legal
Research and Writing. In this article, we address such important
questions as "why bother?" or "doesn't all this take too much time?" We
suggest that the type of research as well as the strengths and weaknesses
of the particular researcher may govern what types of notes need to be
recorded.
The final part of the article lists our "Top Ten Tips" for
successful note-taking, a list we hope researchers will use and those who
teach legal research will disseminate. We are convinced that research is
done most economically and without duplication when researchers have noted
their steps. We are convinced that producing those final products, the
result of hours of intensive research work, can be most effectively
accomplished when researchers have all the needed information right there
at their fingertips, the results of good note-taking habits.
Forgive us if we appear to be tooting our own horns a bit. But, we
decided, we *did* write the article to be read and do believe it can help
guide researchers to create their own effective note-taking styles.
Remember, check it out in the Winter issue of Perspectives [Vol.4, No. 2]!
Penny Hazelton University of Washington
Peggy Jarrett Gallagher Law Library
Nancy McMurrer 1100 NE Campus Parkway
Mary Whisher Seattle, WA 98105
On Wed, 18 Oct 1995, Ellen Platt wrote:
> Message cross-posted to LegalWriting and PrivateLawLib, please excuse the
> duplication.
>
> Colleagues,
>
> A co-worker and I are developing some new tools for possible implementation in
> our Advanced Legal Research course, among them is some sort of format for
> recording the results of legal research. Do you teach your students or
> associates some method of recording their research to assist them in avoiding
> the evils of duplicitous or inefficient research? A search of research and
> writing literature yields only vague guidance on the important details to
> include in a log of research notes (name of source, citation, etc.).
>
> Do you use a checklist, standardized resource information form, a consistent
> format (which could be research subject specific)? Would you be willing to
> share this (in exchange for what other people share with us)?
>
> Thanks in advance and we hope to hear from you soon.
>
> Regards, Ellen Platt and Steve Nelson
>
>
> Ellen J. Platt platte@vms.csd.mu.edu
> Reference Librarian
> Marquette University Law Library phone: (414) 288-7092
> 1103 W. Wisconsin Ave. fax: (414) 288-5914
> Milwaukee, WI 53233
>
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