This chapter needs to represent in detail the process for using tools like Noodle.
Electronic Note-Taking Methods
As of 2015, the writing-teaching world—at least at the college level and in terms of textbooks—is seriously behind in terms of what it knows and what it teaches about note-taking for major writing projects. Strangely, the very best writing resource on the Internet, the Purdue OWL, has nothing on note-taking. Read the following section Traditional Note-Taking Methods for a review of just what good any note-taking system is.
Until we get our act together, consider how the traditional note-taking system is implemented in software applications.
A particulary good tutorial on the traditional note-taking method has been developed at Bonita Springs Middle Language Arts Department. You can go download it here: How to Organize a Research Paper using Notecards. Makes you want to write a research paper!
A number of software applications are available that support note-taking and related tasks: Evernote, EasyBib, NoodleTools, and more. Their basic functions are similar so let's use NoodleTools. It has a nice set of YouTube videos that walk you through the main phases of its use:
How do I create a new project? This video takes you from the very start!
NoodleTools—Creating Outlines. If you've created good notecards, creating the outline from them is terrific, as this video shows.
Noodle Tools Works Cited. If you've created good notecards, creating the bibliography from them is also terrific.
Traditional Note-Taking Methods
When you've located the right sources of information for your report, it's time to start gathering the right information from them and developing it into a report. In other words, it's time to start reading, summarizing, paraphrasing, interviewing, measuring, calculating, and developing information any other way your report project requires. The technical report may be one of the largest writing projects that you've ever tackled: you may wonder how you are going to do all that reading and remember all that information. Concerning the reading, here are several suggestions:
- Develop as specific an outline as you can: it shows you what information you must gather and, as importantly, what information you can ignore.
- Use the indexes, tables of contents, and headings within chapters to read books selectively for just the information you need.
- Divide your work into manageable, hour-long chunks (make progress rather than relying on big blocks of weekend or vacation time).
As for remembering the information you gather for your report, the most practical suggestion is to use some form of note-taking. Note-taking refers to any system for collecting and storing information until you can use it in the report. Note-taking involves the skills of summarizing, paraphrasing, or quoting. A good system of note-taking is one that enables you to gather a large amount of information over a long period of time and to be able to use that information without having forgotten it or lost it in the meantime.
Traditional note-taking process: an overview
In the traditional system of taking notes for a long report, you:
- Develop a rough outline.
- Do any preliminary reading necessary to construct a rough outline.
- Locate your information sources, and make bibliography cards for each source.
- Take the actual notes on index cards.
- Label each notecard according to its place in the outline.
- Provide bibliographic information on each notecard.
- Change or add extra detail to the outline as the note-taking process continues.
- Check off the areas of the outline for which sufficient notes have been taken.
When you have taken sufficient notes to cover all parts of an outline, you transcribe the information from the notecards into a rough draft, filling in details, adding transitions, and providing your own acquired understanding of the subject as you write. Naturally, you may discover gaps in your notes and have to go back and take more notes.
Developing the rough outline
As the section on outlining emphasizes, you must have a working outline before you begin gathering information. The rough outline shows you which specific topics to gather information on and which ones to ignore. Think of the outline as a series of questions:
Rough outline for a report Questions generated
light water nuclear reactors by the outline
I. Pressurized Water Reactors What are the main differ-
A. Major Components ences? what are the main
B. Basic Operation components? what are the
materials? design? dimen-
sions? how many are in op-
eration? where? who designed
them?
II. Boiling Water Reactors How does they differ from
PWRs?
A. Major Components What are the main components?
B. Basic Operation What are the materials? de-
sign? dimensions? designers?
where used? how many?
III. Safety Measures What are the chief dangers?
A. Pressurized Water Reactor What are the dangers and safety
measures associated with PWRs?
B. Boiling Water Reactors What are the dangers and safety
measures associated with BWRs?
C. Role of the Nuclear Regu- How does the NRC regulate
latory Commission nuclear power plants? what
standards does it enforce? how?
IV. Economic Aspects of Light Water What are the construction,
Reactors operation, maintenance, and
A. Construction Costs fuel costs? what about the availa-
B. Operation and Maintenance bility of fuel? how do these
Costs costs compare to output? how
do the PWR and the BWR compare
in terms of costs and output?
C. Operating Capacity How much electricity can a LWR
generate at full capacity |
Figure 1. Viewing an outline as a series of questions
If you don't have a good, specific outline, the sky is the limit on how many notes you can take. Think of the outline as a set of boxes that you fill up with the information you collect as you do your research for the report:
ps:- For books, record the "facts of publication": the city of publication, the publisher, and the date of publication.
- For magazines, record the title of the magazine, the date of issue of the specific magazine, and the beginning and ending page numbers of the article.
- For encyclopedia articles, record the edition number and date of the encyclopedia, and look up the authors' initials.
- For government documents, disregard the authors' names, use the department, administration, or agency name as the author, and copy the cataloguing number.
- For any private sources of information you use, for example, interviews or letters, record the date of the communication, the source's full name, title, and organization with which he or she is affiliated.
Information on the notecards
In the traditional note-taking system, a notecard typically looks like this:
BWR—fuel rod (III,A,1,b)
fuel rod
material—Zircaloy
(same as PWR fuel rod)
148 in. long X 0.493 in. diam.
slightly longer >' PWR fuel rod
16 D, 749
|
Figure 3. A typical notecard
This notecard has the following features:
- A word, phrase, or number that indicates where it fits into the outline (the "locator").
- Bibliographic information: that is, an abbreviation for the source of the note (book, article, etc.) and a page number.
- The note itself, the information that will go into the report.
- A number that indicates the notecard's place in the final arrangement of all the notecards.
Locator. The "locator" phrase or number tells you where the note fits into the outline, that is, when and where you'll use this information in the report. Locaters must be updated regularly. As you read, take notes, and learn more about your subject, you can flesh out, or "elaborate," your outline more and more, subdividing it into third, fourth, and even fifth levels. This process is illustrated in the section on updating the outline.
Bibliographic information. Each notecard must also contain bibliographic information, those details about the source of the note: the author, title, page number, and so on. Rather than write all such information on each notecard, use abbreviations: assign a letter to each source, and keep track of the sources on bibliography cards, as shown above.
Methods of recording information on notecards
The actual information that you record on the index card is rather small: a few statistics or a sentence or two, and not much else. You take such small bits of information to make it easier to "shuffle" your notecards into the sequence in which you'll use them in writing the rough draft. There are three ways of recording the information on notecards:
- Directly quoting it, copying the information directly from the source word-for-word
- Paraphrasing it, retaining the full detail of the information but in your own words
- Summarizing it, condensing the main points in the information in your own words
See what the Purdue OWL has to say about these methods.
Direct quotation. In most technical reports, direct quotation is needed only for the following situations:
- Statements by important or well-known authorities or leaders
- Controversial statements you do not want attributed to you
- Statements expressed in unusual, vivid, or memorable language
Here is an example notecard with a direct quotation:
Myers, author of The Nuclear Power Debate and somewhat of
a supporter of nuclear, emphs heavy inspect and penalties:
During the period between July 1, 1975 and September 30,
1976 the NRC listed 1,611 items of noncompliance. Only six
of these were considered serious violations, 923 were classi-
fied as infractions, and 682 were noted as deficiencies. The
NRC issued fines to ten utilities totaling $172,250 between
July 1, 1975 and December 15, 1976. NRC officials report
that the limited use of fines and the efforts to get industry
to regulate itself have worked. "By and large," one NRC offi-
cial told IRRC, "I think our enforcement program is working."
H, 46 |
Figure 4. Original passage and notecard with direct quotation
When you copy a direct quotation onto a notecard, remember to do a few extra things that will save time and frustration later on:
- Write a lead-in to introduce the quotation, citing the author's name and any other important information about the author.
- Write a brief explanation, interpretation, or comment on the quotation you've just copied.
There are essentially two types of direct quotation: "block" quotations and "running" quotations. Here is an example of a block quotation (any quotation over 3 lines long, which is indented):
In Myers' view, the nuclear power industry has every reason
to comply with the NRC's regulations to the very letter:
The NRC issues an order to shut down or imposes
civil fines only after repeated violations have in-
dicated what the NRC considers "a pattern of non-
compliance." The NRC argues that, particularly with
power plants, civil penalties are unnecessary for the
most part. "The greatest penalty," one official said,
"is to require the plant to shut down, forcing it to
buy replacement power (often at a cost of $100,000 to
$200,000 per day) elsewhere. A civil penalty's largest
cost—the NRC is limited to a $5,000-per-violation
ceiling per 30 days—is the stigma attached to it."
(8:46)
The "stigma" refers to the fact that, once a nuclear power
plant is fined, it will likely be the target of public con-
cern and even more stringent and frequent NRC inspection. |
Figure 5. Block quotation and a running quotation
"Running" quotations are direct quotations that are trimmed down and worked into the regular sentences of a report. Notice how much smoother and more efficient the running quotation is in the revised version below:
Figure 6. An ineffective block quotation revised as a running quotation
Guide for using direct quotations
When you use direct quotations in your report, keep these guidelines in mind.
Figure 7. Using ellipsis in direct quotations. The three dots "..." show that words are omitted from the sentence. The brackets "[ ]" indicate changes made by the writer using the quotation so that it would read as good English and make sense.
Paraphrasing. In technical-report writing, usually the better approach to note-taking is to paraphrase. When you paraphrase, you convey the information fact-by-fact, idea-by-idea, and point-by-point in your own words. The writer of the original passage ought to be able to read your paraphrase and say that it is precisely what she or he had meant. Here are some example paraphrased notecards:
Figure 8. Paraphrased notecards Paraphrasing Tool. Pop in a direct quote and see a paraphrase! From grammica.com
Paraphrases are necessary and preferable for a number of reasons:
Here is an example of an original passage and its paraphrases, with the unique wording of the original (which must be changed in the paraphrase) underlined.
Figure 9. Avoiding the original wording in paraphrases
Guide for writing and using paraphrases
Here are some guidelines to remember when paraphrasing:
Summary. Summaries are usually much shorter than their originals. A summary concentrates on only those points or ideas in a passage that are important. Unlike in a paraphrase, the information in a summary can be rearranged. Here is a passage from which summaries below will be taken:
Figure 10. Passage to be summarized
Sentence-length summaries. Often summaries are only a sentence long. To create sentence-length summaries, use one or a combination of the following methods:
Extended summaries. A summary can be longer than a single sentence because of the important information contained in the original passage. (Remember, however, that a paraphrase is a point-by-point recap of the original, while the summary is a selection, reordering and condensation of the original.) Here's an extended summary of the passage above on BWR emergency safety systems (Figure 10):
Guide for using summaries
Whenever you summarize, you must handle the resulting summary the same way you would a direct quotation or paraphrase.
Plagiarism. If you follow the guidelines presented in the preceding, plagiarism should not be a problem at all, but make sure you understand what it is. Plagiarism refers to two kinds of theft:
Reports with plagiarized information are often easy to spot for several reasons:
Plagiarism is bad business: the plagiarizer can fail an academic course or lose his or her reputation among business and professional associates. It only takes simple documentation to transform a report with plagiarized material in it into one with legally borrowed material. The section on documentation explains these procedures in detail.
As you take notes, you must regularly update the locators on all your notecards because as you read, take notes, and learn more about your technical subject, your outline may either change or become more specific. Imagine that you started with this excerpt of a rough outline and had taken these notecards:
Figure 11. Notecards and the corresponding outline before updating
As you took these notecards, you would update your outline periodically; at the end, the outline might look like this:
Figure 12. Updated outline
Notice that all five of these notecards are about "IV. B. Boiling Water Reactor Safety Systems." Notecard 1 divides this safety system into the drywell and the emergency core cooling systems. This division produces "1" and "2" under "B." Notecards 3 through 5, about the subsystems making up the emergency systems, produce "a," "b," and "c" under "2."
If you had taken these notes and updated your outline, you would revise the locators on the individual notecards like this:
Figure 13. Revised locators
Remember that if you don't like the number-combinations as locators, you can substitute short phrases, as is shown in the alternate locators above.
As you take notes, check off sections of your outline for which you gather sufficient information, as is done in this outline excerpt. In this example, the writer has taken sufficient notes for much of IV.B. but still needs information for the rest of the outline.
Figure 14. An outline for which note-taking is partially complete
In the final step in notetaking, you arrange the notecards in the order that you'll use them as you write the rough draft. Read through your cards several times to make sure the sequence is right and that there are no gaps in the information you've gathered. When you're sure that the order is right, write sequence numbers on each of the cards to preserve the order (see the sequence numbers on the notecards in the next section). With the notecards in the right order and numbered, you are ready to write the first draft, which is discussed in the section on rough drafting.
There are plenty of other ways to take notes. The main point of any form of note-taking of course is to make your report work easier and less time-consuming. You may prefer some other note-taking system because of your own work style or because of your report project. Or, you may end up using some other system in combination with the traditional one. Any system that enables you to get your work done efficiently is a good one.
Figure 15. Sample notesheet: taking notes by the source
In this system, the source (book, article, report, etc.) is indicated at the top of the page; the page numbers are indicated down the right margin in parentheses; and the sheet of notes is keyed to the outline down the left margin in parentheses.
I would appreciate your thoughts, reactions, criticism regarding this chapter: your response—David McMurrey.
Ineffective direct quotation
There are two types of light water reactors: the pressurized
water reactor and the boiling water reactor.
LWRs of both types convert heat to electricity with an
efficiency of about 32 percent—significantly less
than the best fossil-fueled plants, although about equal to
the national average for all thermal electricity generation
[13:438].
As for harnessing the energy potential of uranium, LWRs are
estimated to average only between 0.5 and 1.0 percent.
Revision with running quotation
There are two types of light water reactors: the pressurized
water reactor and the boiling water reactor. According to Paul
Ehrlich, who has been a consistent critic of nuclear power, both
these types of LWRs "convert heat to electricity with an
efficiency of about 32 percent—significantly less than the best
fossil-fueled plants, although about equal to the national
average for all thermal electricity generation" (13:438). As for
harnessing the energy potential of uranium, LWRs are estimated
to average only between 0.5 and 1.0 percent.
According to Desaix Myers in his The Nuclear Power Debate, "The
NRC has nearly 400 staff members assigned to inspect nuclear
plants now operating or under construction."
NRC officials also inspect nuclear power plants "an average of 50
times during the period before operation" when they are under
construction and "a minimum of four times a year" after the
plants go into operation.
Myers points out that standardization of nuclear power plant
design is an important next step: "The NRC estimates that by
standardizing plants..., the time between a decision to go
nuclear and start-up of plant operations can be reduced from 11
to 6 years."
Ehrlich argues that a mistaken notion of the breeder reactor
has been promoted in the United States:
[Although breeder reactors] can harness so much more
of the potential energy in uranium and thorium than non-
breeders[, i]t is worth emphasizing that a breeder does
not get something for nothing....
Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich
and John P. Holdren, Ecoscience:
Population, Resources, and Environ-
ment, (San Francisco: Freeman,
1977), p. 441.
Ehrlich goes on to argue that breeder reactors are ...
BWR—fuel assembly
(III,A,1,3)
fuel assembly—63 f rods spaced, supported in a sq
(8 x 8) arrangement by upper + lower plate
3 kinds: (a) tie rods; (b) water rod); (c) stand
f rods
3rd, 6th f rods on a bundle's outer edge act as
tie rods
the 8 tie rods screw into castg of lower tie plate
water rod: acts as spacer support rod, as source
of moderator material close to the center of f
bundle
K, 2001
BWR—fuel assem
(III,A,1,3)
fuel channel—enclosure for f bundle; f bundle +
f channel make up fuel assem
is a tube with a square shape, made of Zircaloy
dimensions: 5.518 in. X 5.518 in. X 166.9 in.
function: channel core coolt thru f bundle and
guide control rods
K, 2001
Original passage
About a third of light-water reactors operating or under
construction in the United States are boiling-water reactors.
The distinguishing characteristic of a BWR is that the reac-
tor vessel itself serves as the boiler of the nuclear steam
supply system. This vessel is by far the major component in the
reactor building, and the steam it produces passes directly to
the turbogenerator. The reactor building also contains emergency
core cooling equipment, a major part of which is the pressure
suppression pool which is an integral part of the containment
structure. . . . . earlier BWRs utilized a somewhat different
containment and pressure suppression system. All the commercial
BWRs sold in the United States have been designed and built by
General Electric.
Several types of reactors that use boiling water in pres-
sure tubes have been considered, designed, or built. In a
sense, they are similar to the CANDU, described in Chapter 7,
which uses pressure tubes and separates the coolant and mo-
derator. The CANDU itself can be designed to use boiling light
water as its coolant. The British steam-generating heavy-
water reactor has such a system. Finally, the principal reac-
tor type now being constructed in the Soviet Union uses a
boiling-water pressure tube design, but with carbon modera-
tor.
Anthony V. Nero, A Guidebook
to Nuclear Reactors, Berkeley:
University of California Press,
1979.
Paraphrased version
Boiling water reactors, according to Anthony V. Nero in his
Guidebook to Nuclear Reactors, either completed or constructed,
make up about one third of the light-water reactors in the
U.S. The most important design feature of the BWR is that
the reactor vessel itself acts as the nuclear steam supply
system. The steam this important component generates goes
directly to the turbogenerator. Important too in this de-
sign is the emergency core cooling equipment which is
housed with the reactor vessel in the reactor building.
One of the main components of this equipment is the pres-
sure suppression pool. The containment and pressure sup-
pression system currently used in BWRs has evolved since
the early BWR designs. General Electric is the sole design-
er and builder of these BWRs in the U.S.
The different kinds of reactors that use boiling water
in pressure tubes are similar to the CANDU, which separates
coolant and moderator and uses pressure tubes also. CANDU
can also use boiling light water as a coolant. The British
have designed a reactor generated steam from heavy water
that uses just such a system. Also, the Soviets have de-
veloped and are now building as their main type of reactor
a boiling pressure tube design that uses carbon as the
moderator. [12:232]
Numerous systems are available for controlling abnormali-
ties [in boiling water reactors]. In the event that control
rods cannot be inserted, liquid neutron absorber (containing
a boron compound) may be injected into the reactor to shut
down the chain reaction. Heat removal systems are available
for cooling the core in the event the drywell is isolated
from the main cooling systems. Closely related to the heat
removal systems are injection systems for coping with de-
creases in coolant inventory.
Both abnormalities associated with the turbine system
and actual loss of coolant accidents can lead closing of
the steam and feedwater lines, effectively isolating the
reactor vessel within the drywell. Whenever the vessel is
isolated, and indeed whenever feedwater is lost, a reactor
core isolation cooling system is available to maintain
coolant inventory by pumping water into the reactor via
connections in the pressure vessel head. This system oper-
ates at normal pressures and initially draws water from
tanks that store condensate from the turbine, from con-
densate from the residual heat removal system, or if neces-
sary, from the suppression pool.
A network of systems performs specific ECC [emergency
core cooling] functions to cope with LOCAs [loss-of-cool-
ant accidents]. (See Figure 6.) These all depend on
signals indicating low water level in the pressure vessel
or high pressure in the drywell, or both.
BWR—safety sys
(IV,B,2)
The systems that perform emergency core cooling functions in
loss-of-coolant accidents include low-pressure injection,
utilization of the RHR system, and high- and low-pressure core
spray systems.
I, 104
BWR—safety sys
(IV,B,2)
In case of problems with control rods or loss of coolant, BWRs
use an absorber to stop the reaction or emergency systems to
replenish and maintain coolant around the reactor core,
respectively.
I, 104-107
BWR—safety sys
(IV,B,2)
If the control rods malfunction, a substance can be introduced to
shut down the reaction altogether, and if water is prevented from
reaching the reactor core, BWRs are equipped with backup sources
of coolant that can be sprayed or injected into the pressure
vessel.
I, 104-107
Boiling water reactors use numerous systems to control
abnormalities in reactor operations. If a problem with control
rods occurs, a liquid neutron absorber can be injected to halt
the chain reaction. If coolant is cut off from the reactor core,
a reactor core isolation cooling system can maintain coolant
inventory by pumping water from various storage areas. This
system includes low-pressure injection, the residual heat removal
system, and the high- and low-pressure core spray systems. The
water supply for these various emergency systems ultimately come
from the suppression pool.
Updating the outline
Rough sketch outline
IV. Safety Measures
A. Pressurized Water Reactor Safety Measures
B. Boiling Water Reactor Safety Systems
C. Role of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Corresponding notecards
BWR—safety sys.
(IV,B)
safety sys incl control rods, containmt bldg,
resid heat removl sys
there work like those in PWR
unique to BWR: drywell, emergency core coolg sys
1 I, 100
BWR—safety sys
(IV,B)
drywell—encloses react vess + assoc equip
(includes recirc sys, press relief valves on
main steam lines)
2 I, 100
BWR—safety sys
(IV,B)
emergency core coolg sys—handles loss-of-coolt
accidents; includes reactor core iso sys, hi-
press core spray sys, lo-press core spray sys
(figure for this, p.106)
3 I, 105-6
BWR—safety sys
(IV,B)
react core iso coolg sys: if loss-of-coolt accidt
(causg closing of steam lines,feedwtr lines to
react vessel), RCICS activated (maintains coolt
inventory by pumpg water to reactor via connex
in press vess head
4 I, 104
BWR—safety sys
(IV,B)
hi-press core spray: lowers press w/in press
vessel, provides suppl water in loss-of-coolt
accidt.
with uncovered cores, spray directly cools fuel
assemblies (wtr fr condensed wtr storge tanks
+ suppress pool
5 I, 104
Revised outline
IV. Safety Measures
A. Pressurized Water Reactor Safety Measures
B. Boiling Water Reactor Safety Systems
1. The Drywell
2. Emergency Core Cooling Systems
a. Reactor core isolation cooling system
b. High-pressure core spray
Notecard Original Updated Alternate
no. locators locators locators
1 IV. B same Safety/Boil.Wtr.React.
2 IV. B IV. B. 1 Safety/BWR/drywell
3 IV. B IV. B. 2 Safety/BWR/Em.Cor.Cool.
4 IV. B IV. B. 2. a Saf./BWR/Em.Cor.Cool/
React.Cor.Cool.
5 IV. B IV. B. 2. b Saf./BWR/Em.Cor.Cool./
Hi.Pres.Cor.Spray
Final stages in the notetaking process
III. Boiling Water Reactors
A. Description of the Basic Components
1. Core
a. core
b. fuel
c. fuel rod
d. fuel assembly
2. Control Rods
3. Core Shrouds and Reactor Vessel
4. Recirculation System
5. Steam Separators
6. Steam Dryers
B. Production of Electricity
1. Circulating Water
2. Separating Steam
3. Drying the Steam
4. Producing Electricity
IV. Safety Measures
A. Pressurized Water Reactor Safety Measures
1. Residual Heat Removal System
2. Emergency Core Cooling Systems
a. passive system
b. low-pressure injection systems
c. high-pressure injection systems
3. Containment Building
B. Boiling Water Reactor Safety Systems
1. The Drywell
2. Emergency Core Cooling Systems
a. reactor core isolation cooling system
b. high-pressure core spray
c. low-pressure core spray
C. Role of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
V. Economic Aspects of Light Water Reactors
A. Busbar Cost
1. Construction Cost
2. Operation and Maintenance Costs
3. Fuel Costs
B. Operating Capacity
1. Availability Factor
2. Capacity Factor
Here is an example sheet of notes using this approach:
Outline Source: J Pages
area
1. BWR core—large nbr of fuel assembls (94)
ea one a sq array 7 X 7 or 8 X 8
III,A,1 fuel pin: active length 12 ft
contains water rod (providg (95)
moderator w/in f bundles)
III,A,2 large BWR contains 764 assems w
40-50,000 f rods + about 180 tons
of uran. diox
2. reactor vessel—contains core (99-100)
and assoc equip, also control rods
above core, steam separators/dryers
3. vessel dimensions: 72 ft high, 21 ft diam (100)
material: carbon steel, 6-7 in thick
III,A,3 clad w 1/8 in stainls steel
withstands 1000 psi at operatg temps
4. coolant—recirculates w/in react vessel of BWR
IV,B,2-3 no external loop
jet pumps in annulus (101)
pump: reactor inlet nozzles