A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations, 7th edition - Kate L. Turabian 2007

Take useful notes - Use note-taking to advance your thinking
Engaging sources
Part I. Research and writing: from planning to production

Readers will judge your report not just by the quality of your sources and how accurately you report them, but also by how deeply you engage them. To do that, you must take notes in a way that not only reflects but encourages a growing understanding of your project.

4.3.1 Use note-taking to advance your thinking

Many inexperienced researchers think that note-taking is a matter of merely recording data. Once they find a source, they download or photocopy pages or write down exactly what's on them. Recording and photocopying can help you quote or paraphrase accurately, but if that's all you do, if you don't engage your sources actively, you will simply accumulate a lot of inert data that are likely to be equally inert in your report.

If you photocopy lots of text, annotate it in a way that engages your critical thinking. Start by picking out those sentences that express crucial elements in a chapter or article (its claim, major reasons, and so on). Highlight or label them in the margin. Then mark ideas or data that you expect to include in your report. (If you use a highlighter, use different colors to indicate these different elements.)

Then on the back of the photocopied pages, summarize what you've highlighted or sketch a response to it, or make notes in the margin that help you interpret the highlighting. The more you write about a source now, the better you will understand and remember it later.