Scribba
Most accidental plagiarism doesn't happen while you write the paper. It happens weeks earlier, in your notes. You copy a good sentence from an article, forget the quotation marks, and three weeks later it reads like something you thought of. Or you jot down an idea with no page number, and now you can't tell whose idea it was.
Good research notes prevent that. They keep three things apart: what a source said word for word, what a source said in your words, and what you think. And they tie every line to a source you can cite. Here's a system that does that, and how to run it on an iPad.
Start with a source log
Before you take a single note, make a numbered list of your sources on its own page. Each time you find something worth reading, give it the next number and write down everything you'll need to cite it:
- Author or authors
- Title of the article, chapter or book
- Journal, publisher or website
- Year, volume and issue, if there are any
- Page range or URL, and the date you accessed it for web sources
Do it the moment you open the source, not when the paper is due. Tracking down a missing page range the night before is slow, and it's how sources get cited wrong or dropped.
From now on, every note refers to a source by its number. "S4, p. 112" is enough, because the log holds the full citation.
One page per source
Give each source its own page, or several pages for a long book. At the top, write the source number and a short version of the citation. Everything below is notes from that source only.
This sounds rigid, but it solves the worst problem in research notes: mixed-up attribution. If notes from three articles share one page, you'll eventually lose track of which idea came from where. With one source per page, the page itself tells you.
Mark every note as a quote, a paraphrase or your own idea
This is the core habit. Use three clear markers and use them every time.
- Quote. The author's exact words, in quotation marks, with the page number. Copy it letter for letter, including punctuation. Put a "Q" in the margin too, so it stands out even if the quotation marks get lost.
- Paraphrase. The author's idea in your own words and your own sentence structure, with the page number. Mark it "P." It still needs a citation in your paper.
- Your own thinking. Reactions, connections, questions and arguments. Put these in square brackets or mark them "ME." These are the only notes you can use without citing anyone.
Tip: if you're not sure whether a note is a quote or a paraphrase, treat it as a quote. Over-quoting in your notes costs nothing. Under-quoting is how plagiarism slips in.
How to paraphrase without copying
A paraphrase that swaps a few words for synonyms is still too close to the original. To paraphrase well:
- Read the passage until you understand it.
- Look away from the source, or cover it.
- Write the idea from memory, the way you'd explain it to a friend.
- Compare with the original. If you reused a distinctive phrase, either change it or put it in quotation marks.
- Add the page number.
Writing from memory also helps you learn the material, because you have to understand it to say it differently.
Write down where your ideas came from
Your own ideas get a source too. If a thought came to you while reading source 6, note "S6" next to it. When you write the paper, you'll know whether you built on that author's argument, which you should credit, or came up with something new.
Sort by idea, not by source
Once you've read a few sources, start a separate set of pages organized by theme or question. Under each theme, list the notes that belong there by source number and page: "S2 p. 40, S5 p. 9, S7 p. 211." This is where your argument starts to take shape, because you can see which sources agree, which disagree and where there's a gap.
When it's time to outline, these theme pages become your sections. How to plan an essay on iPad picks up from here.
Every school has its own academic integrity policy, and every instructor picks a citation style. Check both before you start, and ask your instructor or your campus writing center if you're unsure how to cite something.
Research notes in Scribba
Scribba is an iPad notes app built for class, and it works well as a research notebook. Here's how the system above maps onto it.
One notebook per paper. Make a notebook for the project. Put the source log on the first page and give each source its own page after it. Open the page sidebar and add a named bookmark for each source, like "S4 Ramirez 2021," and the bookmarks become a table of contents you can jump around in.
Read and annotate PDFs in the same place. Import an article's PDF as a new notebook or into the current one, then write and highlight directly on it. The PDF's text is searchable. For printed book chapters, scan the pages with the camera. Our guide to annotating lecture slides on iPad covers PDFs in more detail.
Keep the source and your notes side by side. Split View lets you open a notebook in its own window, so the article sits on one side while you take notes on the other. That's the best setup for the cover-and-paraphrase method.
Use color for your three markers. Save three colors, one each for quotes, paraphrases and your own ideas, so the type of every note is visible at a glance. Keep the "Q" and "P" labels too, since colors don't always survive printing.
Try Index Cards paper. The Index Cards template is a page of card outlines. Some researchers like one note per card, with the source number and page in a corner, because it keeps each note small and self-contained.
Find a note later. Scribba searches your handwriting, typed text and PDF text, from the library or inside a notebook. If you tag notes with a theme word, searching that word brings up every page that has it. See searching handwriting on iPad.
Move notes into theme pages. Use the lasso to select a note and move it, or copy whole pages between notebooks from the page sidebar.
Be careful when turning notes into text. Scribba can copy a page's handwriting as typed text, which helps when you move notes into a draft. Check every quotation against the source afterwards, word by word. Recognition can misread names and punctuation, and a quote has to be exact.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to cite a paraphrase?
Yes. A paraphrase uses someone else's idea, so it needs a citation even though the words are yours. Only your own thinking goes uncited.
What if I forgot to record a page number?
Go back to the source and find it before you use the note. If you can't find it, don't use the note as a quote.
Can I import journal articles into Scribba?
Yes. Import a PDF as a new notebook or into an existing one. You can write on it, and its text is searchable.