best way to take a cutting is this
1) make a 45 degree cut removing the cutting from the plant.. use a VERY sharp utensil (razor blade, exacto knife) to do this.. also dip it in rubbing alcohol in between cuts to make sure its clean... this will eliminate infections at the cut sites...
2) scrap the bottom 1/2" or so of flesh away from the bottom of the cutting and dip into either rooting powder or rooting gel... either works... some people say the powder stays on better.. i use a cloning machine and the gel works fine for me since it just adds more hormones to the resevoir anyways... choice is yours again... the scraping helps to give more surface area for the rooting hormones to come in contact with... helps the rooting process..
3) place in clone machine or rooting medium...
4) you can remove leaves if you want... strip it down to just a few top leaves... or ive seen ones where you leave the leaves on the clone... just cut the large fans in half... both work well... i personally am going to start leaving everything on and just trimming large leaves in 1/2... but its up to you.. watch some of MYGIRLS videos on youtube or check his posts if your interested in taking large cuttings and leaving the leaves on...
good luck
sampson