The collection is arranged into seven series: Correspondence; Committees and organizations; ARO (Army Research Office) files; NSF (National Science Foundation) files; Writings; Conferences; and Reviews and evaluations. The Correspondence series is further organized into External mail, Internal mail and General mail.

The Correspondence series contains records from the years 1955-2000. Following Dr. Newton's original arrangement, the series is further organized into three subseries. The first subseries is Internal correspondence, 1969-2000. This subseries consists of Prof. Newton's with Indiana University administrators and colleagues, such as IU President Herman B Wells and Newton's colleagues in the physics department. The next subseries, External correspondence, 1969-1999, consists of correspondence with persons outside IU. Many of the letters are from former students and colleagues who are writing either for letters of recommendation or to ask questions about methods or theories relating to physics. The last subseries within the Correspondence series is General correspondence, 1955-1979. The letters found in this series are more personal in nature or are of a general nature, such as departmental memos. This series is arranged chronologically and closely follows Newton's original organization. He had all of the files organized by fiscal year, but as some were quite large, they were broken down by month in order to make the files more manageable for researchers.

The next series in the collection is entitled Committees and organizations, 1975-2003, and is arranged alphabetically by folder title. The committee folders contain correspondence between committee members, memos, and minutes of some of the meetings. The folders for the organizations contain much of the same materials, although some also contain pamphlets or business cards. Newton's records pertaining to the Indiana University Institute of Advanced Study are a prominent part of this series. Two folders in this series, "Committee to review dean of music school (Charles Webb)" and "Tenure committee," are restricted and not available for use by researchers at this time.

The third series in the Newton collection spans 1965-1975 and is the ARO (Army Research Office) files. This series includes paperwork for grants that Newton received from the Army Research Office on projects focusing on inverse scattering problems, phase transitions and critical points, lattice non-uniformities and localized magnetic moments in solids, and irreversible phenomena. Also found in the files are reports from Newton to the Army Research Office explaining his progress or any problems that he may have encountered while implementing these projects.

Records for Newton's NSF (National Science Foundation) projects make up the next series. Spanning 1968-1992, these projects focus projects related to elementary particle interactions, particle collisions, and the complex Regge Trajectory. The series includes correspondence between Newton, his colleagues, and the NSF, as well as project proposals and outlines. Detailed account statements were pulled and shredded.

The fifth series is entitled Writings, 1960-1992. The writings include works by Newton as well as articles written by his colleagues. This series also includes proofs of two of Newton's books, The Truth of Science and What Makes Nature Tick, complete with illustrations, notes, and corrections.

The next series is Conferences and consists of schedules, flyers, and pamphlets that Newton received from the various conferences that he attended during his career. Several folders in this series are labeled according to the name of the conference, but the bulk of the folders are simply labeled by year. It spans the years 1975-1987.

The last series in the collection is Reviews and evaluations. It is organized alphabetically by folder title and contains reviews of individuals, departments and programs both within and outside of Indiana University. At this time, this series is restricted and cannot be used by researchers.