Let’s Make Article Summaries! Thoughts on Ragged Edges

I have been tossing around this idea in various forms for some time now, and find a number of influences–Twitter Journal Club, #CLmooc (we make learning!), Shut Up And Read!, That new habit, and even #365Papers–all of which revolve around sharing some of the really great reading we do with others, specifically the academic, research-oriented reading we (I?) frequently do in silence.

I get new articles and read some of them every day, so why not share a little of it? Who knows what others may make of it? Likewise, perhaps somebody else may find some useful ideas, if not interesting articles themselves, in this process.

I am not sure if just reading something and then mentioning it is the most useful for anybody else, so will add a little twist. I will write a couple Tweets on the articles I read and share them in a series, along with including them combined in a single posting. Granted, this is still in the idea phase, but in the spirit of making and connected learning, we have to start someplace.

Let me think through some personal guidelines (outline?) for how this can work, and this is what I can really use some help thinking through (amongst the entire process, of course). Comments are most welcome.

When thinking about summarizing research, this seems an outline, at least in general, for an approach to capturing and sharing the essence of (much? most?) research articles:

1. Reference to the Article
2. Context
3. Problem / Purpose / Research Questions
4. Literature / Theoretical Framework
5. Methodology & Method
6. Results / Discussion
7. Conclusion / Significance
8. Link Back (to a combined post, with some applicable tags (e.g., #clmooc, #365Papers, #connectedlearning, #rhizo15, etc.)

So, 5-8 Tweets in total, including a link to the combined blog post.

Granted, there are many ways we can consider summarizing articles, everything from a formal precis in an academic situation to “Hey, check out Article X — you’ll love it!” I will approach this as a personal summary of what I find useful / valuable in it. It will be my WIIFM (What’s In It For ME?), and hopefully it may be useful for others. We’ll see.

I do expect to use quotes, as no reason to reinvent the wheel, when needed–they capture things of my perceived significance. As this happens, I will use “quotation marks” in my comments.

So, here goes the first one.

Reference

Herrmann, Barnhill, & Poole (2013). Ragged edges in the fractured future: a co‐authored org autoethnography. J of Org Ethno #AcRead #CLmooc #365Papers

Herrmann, A. F., Barnhill, J. A., & Poole, M. C. (2013). Ragged edges in the fractured future: a co‐authored organizational autoethnography. Journal of Organizational Ethnography, 2(1), 57–75. http://doi.org/10.1108/JOE-11-2011-0002

 

Context

Have you ever had an out-of-the-box assignment that led to new ways of thinking? This happened with #ICQI. #AcRead #CLmooc

 

Problem / Purpose / Research Questions

How do you process a shared conference experience, as “there is no one way to experience the ‘truth’ of an experience?” #AcRead #CLmooc

 

Literature / Theoretical Framework

As common in autoethnography, the authors reference the literature while processing their experiences #AcRead #CLmooc

 

Methodology & Method

Collaborative autoethnography “is mutually authored, in flux, and teleologically indeterminate.” Qualitative unbounded #AcRead #CLmooc

 

Results / Discussion

Fascinating study to illustrate variations in shared experiences and how methodologies help understand ourselves #AcRead #CLmooc

 

Link Back (to a combined post, with some applicable tags (e.g., #clmooc, #365Papers, #connectedlearning, #rhizo15, etc.)

https://silenceandvoice.com/2015/06/21/lets-make-article-summaries-thoughts-on-ragged-edges/

 

 

So, thoughts? Ideas? Mashup suggestions?

Granted this is the process as I envision it, though things implemented often look different, so we shall see.

One take-away for me from this process–KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!). I need to remember this is a process of my making sense of the research done by others. I do not need to summarize it (that is already in the abstract), but rather to share some things about research that I, and perhaps others, may find interesting and useful.