How to summarize a paper

1/09/04

Prepared by Prof. Lee Sproull and Prof. Natalia Levina

For the “IS Research: Behavioral Perspectives” doctoral seminar

New York University, Stern School of Business

Theoretical Papers

It is helpful to address the following questions if applicable:

1. What is the research question of interest?
2. What theoretical basis is the article drawing from?
3. What are the assumptions about social world and technology made by the authors?
4. What is the proposed theory/framework/model?
5. what are the key concepts?
6. how the key concept relate to each other?
7. what level of analysis is the theory targeted at?
8. What is the contribution of the paper?
9. What are the implications of the paper?
10. What are the limitations?
11. How can the model/theory/framework be applied to and/or tested in practice?
    (Notice the notion of “testing” may not apply to interpretive work).

Empirical Papers

It is helpful to address the following questions if applicable:

1. What is the research question of interest?

1. Theoretical question
2. Operational question

2. What is the methodology used to conduct research?
3. What are the key variables (independent and dependent, if appropriate) or processes
4. What are the key findings?
5. What is the contribution of the paper?
6. What are the implications of the work?
7. What are the limitations of the work?