After you sort all the cards that have been assigned a specific topic
heading (I, II, III or A, B, C), review the cards that are marked with
an asterisk or your personal symbol. Try to figure out where they fit
in your stack of cards.
Don’t include a card if the information it contains just doesn’t seem
to fit anywhere. It’s possible that the data just isn’t relevant to your
revised thesis. Set it aside for now. You can try to include it again
later.
And while you’re setting aside inappropriate notes, don’t forget to
seek out “holes” in your paper—those areas that cry out for a more
up-to-date fact, a good example, or a stronger transition. No one
likes to discover the need to do a little more research, but if you’ve
noticed a problem, I guarantee your teacher will, too. Don’t let
a “black hole” turn a potentially great paper into one that’s merely
okay just because you don’t want to spend another hour online or
in the library.
Now flip through your note cards from front to back. See that?
You’ve created a detailed outline without even knowing it. The topic
numbers or letters on your note cards match the main topics of
your outline. And those headlines on your note cards are the
subtopics for your outline.
Simply transfer your notecard headlines to paper. They appear
on your outline in the same order as they appear in your stack
of cards.
Step 7: Write the First Draft
You may not have realized it, but you’ve already donea lot of the hard
work that goes into the writing stage. You have thought about
how your paper will flow, you have organized your notes, and
you have prepared a detailed outline. All that’s left is to transfer your
information and ideas from note cards to paper.
154 How to Study