The first big research project I did was probably in grade 4 on owls. We had to use Powerpoint to present and we had to have notes. I took notes the same way in grade 7 and a much more advanced version of the same method in highschool. Badke called my method summarizing and I tend to think he's right. This is the simplest form and it has always worked for me in the past. I would usually read a paragraph, write out the main point in bullet form (and a sentence fragment so I'd be forced to rewrite it entirely in my own words later to avoid plagourism), and note any useful statistics that were included.

I am way to familier with this method by now to switch to something new. I should give some other methods a try to see if they can replace the simple summarizing (except photocopier obviously, way too much money).