SCHOLARLY JOURNAL ARTICLE WRITTEN SUMMARY

Ecommerce or E business or topic similar

Throughout your business career you will be asked to report on newspaper or journal articles you've read or projects you've completed. Your goal is to share your information and insights so that the reader(s) learn what you now know. You need to be clear in how you present and limit what you say so that we can remember it. That mostly means you need to be concise in presenting just the highlights. (Remember, if you get me really interested in the article, I'll read the details myself.) Think of this assignment as you reporting on a movie you saw or a book you read. Give me the synopsis.

Our understanding of the world, the things in it, and how they operate and interact is the body of knowledge (BoK) about humans. This BoK exists in every discipline and guides what we learn and how we decide things. Your professors are contributing to the growth of their knowledge by conducting scholarly research. In turn, they share their research and the research of others with you through the courses that you take. 

In the business world, rather than making decisions by trial and error-quite risky for a business-business people rely on what we already know or believe. We find out what is known by consulting the body of knowledge BoK, which is usually housed in libraries, with the most recent (or developing) knowledge found in scholarly journal articles. Most of these articles are online. Here is the URL to Montclair State's collection of searchable scholarly articles: http://www.montclair.edu/library/articlesdatabases/

The list of journals to the right is a good way to get to articles in your discipline. The table under All Databases lists the materials we have and provides a brief description of each. You'll need to use the search filters to find what you're looking for, but it's all here. Folks at our library will be glad to help, too.

Written assignment INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Find a scholarly article of interest. By scholarly I mean an article that includes a data collection and analysis component, not a popular piece one might find in the newspaper, magazine, or on social media. It might be fun to find an article written by one of your favorite professors.

2. Read the article a few times. Trust me, you will need a few times as these articles are a bit complicated and technical. Many articles follow a similar organization: Abstract, Introduction, Review of the Literature, Hypothesis, Methodology (for data collection and analysis), Results, and Conclusions. Each section will guide you to an understanding of the article.

3. Write a MEMO to me that is a two page summary of the article. Your memo should include:

a. An opening sentence or two that gives a brief explanation as to why you are writing the memo. Scenario: We all work for Quanta Communications, and I'm your manager. You found an interesting article you'd like to share with me/our team .... Why?

b. Overview

c. Key questions - What are the authors trying to answer?

d. Data collection - How was data collected?

e. Statistical technique(s) - What, if any, were the statistical technique(s) used to analyze the data

f. Results - What did the results indicate?

g. Conclusions - Based on the research, what did the author(s) conclude?

h. Applications - How might this research be used in our business, in the industry, in your career, etc.?

i. Complete citation of the article (Do not use a separate works cited page, but do provide the complete citation should your reader wish to find the article ... and don't just drop it in. Tell me why you provided it.)

j. End your memo by telling me you'll be glad to discuss any questions I may have and/or write something that ends with a positive tone.

4. Follow the standard business memo format, which includes left justification of your text and single spacing, with a space between each paragraph. Use the Memo Template provided at the beginning of the semester - See Canvas.