As you identify and evaluate research sources, you must make accurate notes of information you think might be useful in your essay. There are many ways to take notes—from jotting down single words or phrases to photocopying entire articles. (For instruction on note-taking, see “Taking Good Research Notes” in How to Research Your Topic on this Web Site.)
There are three ways of incorporating source information into your own writing: summary, paraphrase, and direct quotation. When you summarize or paraphrase, you restate in your own words the idea(s) of another speaker or writer. When you quote, you reproduce the exact words of another speaker or writer.