Pre-Writing: Research, Citations, and Note-Taking

Explore pre-writing strategies that include researching, generating citations, and note-taking.

Teaching in a Tech-Empowered Classroom
Grades K-12 12 min Resource by:
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As you’ve clarified your writing task and generated some preliminary ideas, you are now ready to dive deeper into gathering the specific content that will actually make its way into your writing. This task will again be shaped by your purpose.

Creative Writing

If you’re writing about a personal experience or working on creative writing, you may want to return to the brainstorming stage. However, when you’re brainstorming this time, your work can be more targeted to specific ideas that you wish to develop in your writing. In a sense, you’re generating a bank of raw material that you can use to build your creative writing project.

By brainstorming digitally, rather than on paper, you will have a searchable document that can be more accessible later in the writing stage. It will also allow for easier copying and pasting actions that can save you lots of time if you choose content from your brainstormed ideas.

Expository Writing

If you’re working on expository writing, the process can be more complex, especially when it requires research. If you do need to conduct research for your project, this is the time to do it.

By this stage in the process, you should have already identified topics and ideas that can guide you through the research process. Many times, writers will sketch out a preliminary outline that can highlight the research they will need to complete and the content they will need to gather. This is often based on the preliminary ideas that were generated in the previous step of the pre-writing process.

The preliminary outline can serve as a tentative roadmap, giving focus to the research, the gathering of specific resources, and the development of ideas. Of course, if you change your mind based on new learning, that is certainly okay as well. You’ll just want to adjust your preliminary outline accordingly.

Research

Consider having students use some of the following resources as they research. Some options are digital, while others are offline.

  • Web Searches

This isn’t new. The internet is woven into the fabric of almost every part of our lives. However, familiarity doesn’t always mean effectiveness. We typically will need to help our students develop effective search queries and to evaluate the credibility and quality of the resources that they find. Helping students become credibility detectives is a life skill that will go far beyond researching and writing a paper in school.

  • Primary Sources

These are sources that are presented in their original, unedited form—and not through the lens of a third party, such as a journalist. If students are searching online, two great sources for locating primary resources are the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Learning Lab. If students are researching offline, they might conduct experiments, interview people, conduct surveys, or attend live events.

  • Research Databases

Most library media centers subscribe to quality research databases. These are collections of resources that have already been vetted for quality and credibility. It’s important for students to develop a strong foundation of ideas using these resources, so they have a baseline of credible information that they can compare to other resources they find. Cross-referencing content is one of the most important ways that we can teach students to judge the credibility of content. Starting with databases increases the likelihood that students will begin their research process with a strong foundation of credible facts.

  • AI-Assisted Web Searches

This is an area that’s rapidly developing, and as a result, you may want to bring forward a degree of caution when integrating this approach. At the same time, AI isn’t going anywhere, and it can be empowering to our students to introduce these AI tools in school under a teacher’s guidance. If you use this approach, remember that it’s important to be honest with your students about both the weaknesses and strengths of AI.

The most beneficial AI tools to consider are those generative chatbots that have a research element embedded into them, with citations and referenced sources used in the summaries. Perplexity is one of these options. While it will still provide a summary, it also offers a Sources tab that students can click to explore the source material used to generate the AI summary. ChatGPT Deep Research and Gemini Deep Research also integrate citations and source links into their results and are additional options to consider.

For additional insights into the research and inquiry processes, explore the AVID Open Access article, Search and Seek Credible Information: Step 3 of the Searching for ANSWERS Inquiry Process. This article breaks down ways to gather ideas and content, provides online search tips, and reviews methods for finding credible material.

Citations

As students research and collect information, it’s important that they keep track of where that information comes from. That typically means generating citations for each source.

For younger students, this might mean copying a web link or jotting down the title and author of a source. As students get older, they should be encouraged to generate full citations according to one of the widely accepted style guides available, such as APA or MLA.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) is an excellent resource that helps guide students through the research and citation process. You can think of this site as an online writing guide that includes an integrated citation generator.

Digital citation generators are now the norm, and you can have your students use one of these online tools to create citations that they can use in their work. This can save a lot of time from doing the tedious part of the research and citation process, leaving more room for the actual thinking and writing.

Here are a few citation generators to get students started:

Many of these tools are now integrating AI-powered feedback and writing help into the process. You may want to explore these options and see what makes sense for your students.

Note-Taking

Another important aspect of the research and information gathering process is note-taking. As students are taking notes and gathering ideas, they’ll need to keep the information organized.

Most educators are familiar with the strategy of using recipe cards to capture research and organizing them into categorized piles. While this can still work, there are now digital options that you can also explore.

These can range from recording ideas in Google Docs to using a full digital note card program. Regardless of what you choose, there are several benefits to collecting your notes digitally:

  • They are searchable.
  • Ideas can be quickly cut/copied/pasted.
  • They will be stored online and accessible anywhere.
  • It’s easy to apply color-coding.

If you’re looking for digital programs to help you manage this note-taking process, you might consider one of the following options.

  • Word Processors

This is probably the simplest option since students are already familiar with Microsoft Word or Google Docs. Using these tools will be much like taking notes on paper, and you’ll need to determine how those notes will be organized.

You could keep track of notes by their source, but it’s usually more beneficial to organize them by topic. Often, this will be organized to match the sequence of ideas listed on your preliminary outline. To keep track of which source each note came from, you could color-code the information to match a source.

Another option beyond color-coding is placing a source code next to each note. This might be a letter or a number that represents a specific source. You could also bookmark the source entries and hyperlink the notes back to the source. You might even want to consider adding a hyperlink table of contents at the top of the first page to make navigation quicker and easier.

Trello allows you to create visual boards. While this tool was created to help manage to-do lists, students can use it for tracking research as well. On each board, students can create lists that align with their research subtopics. They can then attach cards below each list. Notes can be tagged with color-coded labels to help them align to their sources. Students can even add checklists or attachments to each card. Cards can be dragged and dropped for reorganizing, and as a bonus, the cards are searchable.

These tools are specifically designed for the note-taking process and mimic the offline recipe card process. However, they are paid products. If you have access to these, they’re ideal and allow you to connect notes to sources automatically. If you don’t have access to them or if you don’t have a budget to purchase them, you’ll need to look to one of the other options.

With Microsoft’s notebook tool, you can create tabs for each of your main points and then pages and subpages for more specific notes. Eventually, you can reorganize your tabs until they morph into a sequential outline. You can also list your sources in one of the sections and then label each one with a tag or code of your choice. This will help you keep track of source information for references and citations. OneNote is searchable, which makes it easy to relocate your ideas.

Evernote also allows you to create virtual notebooks. You can create notes with titles and tags that are organized into these notebooks. The tag feature can be a convenient way to connect a note to a source, categorize by subcategories, or add links, images, and items from Google Drive.

This tool is Google’s AI-powered notebook. Students can create multiple notebooks within NotebookLM. Students might create one for each assignment or one for each main point that will be fleshed out in one specific writing assignment. Inside each notebook, students can then upload resources and notes.

Perhaps the most powerful aspect of this tool is that it’s so easily searchable. Students can search either one source, a couple of sources that they select, or the entire notebook. This is a powerful way for students to interact with their research, ask questions about it, and interact with it in a conversational style. While students will still need to do their own writing, this can be a powerful virtual research partner, and the conversational style with which they can interact with it can make it feel very intuitive and natural.

You don’t have to—and probably shouldn’t—do all of this right away. It’s a lot and can be overwhelming.

Instead, consider the age of your students, their experience with writing, and the unique demands of the type of writing you have chosen. Within these parameters, what makes sense?

Start small and scaffold up from there. Ideally, by the time when students become seniors in high school, they’ve experienced the full menu of options and know how to effectively prepare to write nearly any type of paper. These are writing skills, but more importantly, they’re thinking skills.

AVID Connections

This resource connects with the following components of the AVID College and Career Readiness Framework:

  • Instruction
  • Rigorous Academic Preparedness
  • Student Agency
  • Insist on Rigor

Extend Your Learning

Topic Collections

This course is part of the following collections:

Implementing WICOR®: Writing Power Up and Enhance the Writing Process With Technology

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