Research Paper - Organizing Your Notes
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Organizing Your Research Infographic
Organizational Strategies
Whether writing a paper, creating a video or making a PowerPoint presentation, you need to decide on your organizational strategy for how you will present your information.
Organizational strategies include:
- By category or concept
- When separate ideas need to combine to create a concept, use organization by concept or category. This organization scheme is helpful when making a case so the reader can see how all the ideas are individual and then combine together in a new and helpful way.
- Chronological
- Chronological organization follows a time line or a process of steps. It is best used for when a series of events influences an outcome.
- Hierarchical
- Moving from least to most important/complex or from most to least important/complex is hierarchical organization.
- Alphabetical
- Organizing information by using the alphabet is best then the user of the information knows what they are looking for. Often alphabetical organization is used in reference works like encyclopedia and dictionaries.
Decide which strategy works for your project and use it to to structure your information.
Parts adapted from Solomon, Amy, Gwenn Wilson, and Terry Taylor. 100% Information Literacy Success. Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.