Topic outline

  • Template for notes on articles

    Each unit contains a list of readings and a specification of what articles are to be read fully, if you are supposed to read only one article of the provided alternatives, when you only need to read highlighted parts for the purpose of the course, and which readings are voluntary. In order to save the time of students but also ensure a variety of perspectives, sometimes you only need to read the highlighted parts of the articles. The selected parts are chosen based on what is relevant for the learning objectives of the course and the units and sufficient as material for the group discussion and essay assignments. The voluntary articles are there to enable the curious. You do not need to read to the voluntary readings to get full points for the assignments.

    As a voluntary, helpful tool to make notes and summarize the academic articles, I suggest using an excel sheet where you record the following information in a table:

    -   Authors    

    -   Year

    -   Journal     

    -   Title 

    -   Abstract   

    -   Type (eg.  Review article, empirical paper, book chapter ...)     

    -   Research question    

    -   Empirical material / data   

    -   Independent variables / causal factor of interest

    -   Dependent variable / outcome of interest   

    -   Key findings     

    -   Own learnings. How did this change my understanding?    

    -   Other notes

     

    This is a shortened version of an approach generally used by researchers. An attached excel template contains both the shortened version and a longer version of this summarizing tool. Using the template is voluntary. I recommend it because it tends to make working with articles easier and may also be a helpful tool in later courses or theses. The purpose of making notes in this template is to pay attention to essential aspects of the articles’ arguments, to summarize key points of articles in a structured way, and to have an easier time revisiting and referencing articles read earlier. Feel free to adjust the elements of the excel sheet summary to suit your preferences.


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Unit 1: Introduction to institutions and institutional theory