The thematic sheets are fundamental study tools when you carry out a research paper, an article, an essay or a monograph.
With them you can approach a topic through different sources (books, magazines, internet, documents, etc.), and keep an orderly record of the collection of information.
In academic research, which you do in school, high school, and college, it is important to indicate where the information you are using to support your thesis comes from. This information is usually collected in cards.
Before the advent of personal computers, index cards were typically made into lined cardboard rectangles, designed to be written on, with pens. Today you can carry a token system on a tablet, or on a computer.
The thematic cards have several characteristics:
The cards should always indicate where the information comes from and the topic they deal with. The author, work, and genre must be mentioned, as well as the subject for which it is being signed.
For example: “Rulfo, Juan: Pedro Páramo. Novel. Latin American Literature ".
The cards can contain summary information on a topic, which can be presented in two ways: with excerpts taken from a publication (in which case they must be in quotation marks), or as a summary of what has been read.
The information should be easy to locate. If the cards are on paper, it is convenient to classify them by subject and number them when saving them in small files or files (a shoebox can work as a home file).
When the file is digital, it is convenient to place keywords, to facilitate its location. For example, using the tab on Rulfo, the keywords could be "Rulfo", "literature", "Mexico".
The information contained in a card is a guide for a larger work, so it must be short: from what can fit on a class cardboard card, up to two pages if it is an electronic or digital card.
The thematic sheets are used to collect and organize the information you collect for an investigation. The cards help you organize a mind map, know where you are going, and keep track of where you got the data and the quotes you are going to use..
On the other hand, they allow you to create a database (on paper or digital), which can be used for future research.
It is used to transcribe passages and verbatim quotes from articles or books. Quotation marks must be placed at the beginning and at the end of the citation ("thus"), to indicate that it is a foreign text, and note the data to identify the author and the publication.
If several citations of the same text are placed on the card, without continuity, the interruption can be indicated with three points between brackets […].
They are used to write down in a concentrated, summarized way, different aspects of the investigation. Quotes are not used because you are using your own words. Likewise, the data of the publication from which the data is being taken must be noted.
Paraphrasing means repeating something read, but with different words. A paraphrase card consists of interpreting concepts and data with words other than those in the text.
Being able to paraphrase content is a sign that the investigated material is being understood.
It is the classic worksheet, which includes all the data of a publication, document or text used in the publication: author, title, publisher, year and place of publication, and a few words about the content.
If you have a public library nearby, it is likely that they still keep the traditional reference files there (although they already work with computers to locate the books).
When it comes to a digital publication, you must indicate the url from where it was taken (for example, "https: //es.wikipedia.org ..."), and the date when the page or article was consulted. This is done because in the networks it is very common for the contents to be updated periodically.
They are tabs to store graphs, tables, maps, diagrams and other academic tools that are being used in an investigation.
Once you have chosen the material that you are going to sign for your research, study the content and try to extract the main ideas or the information you need, choosing what type of cards you are going to elaborate.
If it is a topic such as the coronavirus, for example, it is likely that you should make textual, summary and bibliographic thematic cards (if you consulted more than one publication), and even graphics (if you are going to include some of the tables on contagions , survivors and deceased by country).
A file must contain the following information:
It is convenient to number the cards when they are made on paper, to keep them in a certain order. If the file is digital, words that identify the subject studied can be placed, to locate it through the search tools.
If the file is on a book, the work and the author can be placed; if the card is on a topic (climate change, mammals, etc.), this is placed as the title of the card.
It is the content that you want to preserve for use in research. If you copy literally do not forget to use quotes, and always try to summarize.
In the bibliography you should always include the following information: author, title of work or article; publisher, date and place of publication. If it is a digital publication, include the url and the date of consultation.
The date of preparation of the file can serve you in the long run to know if you should update the information.
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