EDIT 7320
Article Notes
Value: 15 points
5-27-08

Purpose
Knowledge of relevant professional and research literature is critical to disciplined inquiry. When you read a great deal of literature and time passes, it can be difficult to remember what an article offers and why it was important. In this class, there are least two tools to help you discipline your reading, process your thinking, and capture your  thoughts about that reading into a durable form.  The first of these tools is the Annotated Bibliography.  The second is this Article Notes Assignment. Both of these assignments provide a foundation for the Literature Graphic and Presentation required at the end of the semester. 
 

What to do

  1. In 1-3 sentences, restate your interest area.  (It may have evolved since the last assignment. If not, copy/paste this part.)
  2. Incorporate any changes suggested in response to previous feedback.
  3. Starting with the list of references from your Annotated Bibliography, work more in depth with each article.  As you work, you may see the need to expand your list.  The minimum number of articles required this semester is 16, and these Notes should include this number.  If you find or need more articles, you may add them to your working list, whether you have time to completely process them or not.  You will not be penalized if you list more than 16 articles but don't have enough time yet to read them thoroughly and create these notes.  In the end, you will need "enough" articles for your AP - and definition of "enough" depends on your topic choice.  Keep this in mind as you look for articles.
  4. Consider this resource as mainly for your own purposes.  While it needs to be reasonably clean for your own use, and should be scrupulously true to your sources, you need not produce perfect prose in your reactions for my benefit.
  5. Create an electronic resource that allows you to look across articles.  Fields (columns) are your choice, but consider these: author, title, reference, tags (themes, codes, topics), highlighted or quoted notes, reactions/thoughts.   Possibilities:
6. Submit your notes as described below, along with the rubric.
7. If you worry that something won't make sense to others, explain your methods briefly.
8. Maintain this resource as an active tool throughout your AP.  The next "checkpoint" will be near the end - or possibly never.  It will be very difficult to resurrect this literature work if the committee desires to see more literature.


Hints
Use quote marks every single time to differentiate your words from someone else's.  (It is very easy to lose track.)

Inadvertent plagiarism is always a danger!  Be scrupulous in representing the work of other people.  Watch out for misrepresentation or misinterpretation.  Track the source of each snippet.

MAF's system: I use a spreadsheet. My columns are: tag; quote; annotation; ref; other cites.  I keep a working reference list in another Word file.   Each line in the spreadsheet is a single idea.  I tag the idea as I read. I quote the author's words directly, which allows me to use direct quotes and to avoid plagiarizing while writing.  If a quote has multiple relevant ideas (tags), I enter multiple lines on the spreadsheet.  Later, the sheet can be sorted by tag, which helps to organize the ideas.  In "other cites," I note additional references from the current article that seem good to track down and add to my list.


Submission Format

Rubric
Criteria
 Value
 Assessment
Components are complete:

[]Restatement of interest area (1pt)
[]Previous feedback incorporated (if appropriate)(1pt)
[]At least 16 articles reviewed (2pts)
[]Rubric with self-assessment  (1 pt)


 5
Your Notes faithfully separate authors' words from your own. There is no danger of inadvertent plagiarism or misrepresentation.
 2
Resource is unified or has the ability to search and/or tag across articles.  It is not simply a folder full of separate files.
 2
Your notekeeping system:
[]tracks important elements
[]seems rational
 2
I can tell that you are working hard and that you are fully engaged in the literature review process.
 2
Mechanics:
[]system works (links behave)
[]APA elements in place

 2
Total
 15

 



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