HOW TO ORGANIZE THE INFORMATION

Once you have gathered all the information, statistics, quotations, and ideas you will need in your report, you can start to use the cards to create the outline or plan you will use when you start to write.

Sort the cards into piles of similar information. Try to think of major headings under which you can develop your report and place each card under its appropriate heading. As you proceed through this step, you may find that there are holes in your research that require that you do more reading.

At this point in the process, you haven’t yet started to write the report as you are still in the planning stage. After the first sorting of the research cards, you may find that the report isn’t developing too well. Perhaps you need to restructure your ideas. No need to worry. Simply gather up the research cards and rearrange them under a different set of headings. Continue to arrange and re-arrange your resource cards until you are satisfied with the way the report will read.

A word of advice. Once you have made a final decision on the order in which the information you have gathered will be presented, number each one of the cards sequentially. Then if you should happen to drop them or get them mixed up, you won’t have to try to reconstruct the same order again. All you will have to is sort them by number.