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HOW TO TAKE NOTES for RESEARCH PAPERS — Transcript

by Jonathan Yuan · 4,388 words · 646 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00in today's video I want to talk about
0:01how to read academic papers and more
0:03importantly how to take notes for them
0:05hi if you're new to the channel my name
0:07is Jonathan I'm a third year PhD student
0:08from the University of Waterloo I study
0:11financial accounting and reading papers
0:13synthesizing research and taking notes
0:15is pretty much what I do every single
0:17day as an academic reading papers is the
0:19primary way to learn about a certain
0:20topic and in order to become an expert
0:23in a particular area and develop your
0:25own research you need to get a good
0:27understanding of the literature now a
0:29particular topic within the area you're
0:30interested in can have tons of papers
0:32that were published by researchers in
0:33the past and your job is to read through
0:35all those papers synthesize the data and
0:38eventually identify a potential Gap
0:39within the literature where you can
0:41insert your interesting research
0:43question now when I started my PhD
0:45program nobody really taught me how to
0:47read academic papers or how to take
0:49notes for them because it's very
0:50different taking notes for these types
0:52of papers compared to taking notes from
0:54a textbook or from a lecture that's why
0:56in today's video I think that it'll be
0:58really helpful for me to show you how I
1:00read my papers and how I take notes now
1:03just a disclaimer everybody learns
1:04differently and what works for me may
1:06not actually work for you and honestly
1:08I've only started using this method this
1:10year because for the past two years of
1:12my PhD program I've been experimenting
1:14with various different types of studying
1:15methods and finally I'm able to find one
1:18that kind of Suits my learning style so
1:20right now in front of you we see my
1:22template that I use to take all the
1:24notes every time I read an academic
1:26paper and as you can see it's in a table
1:28format it's in notion but you can
1:30definitely use Microsoft Excel to create
1:32the exact same table and I think that
1:35this template is the best way for me to
1:38essentially summarize a 20 to 40 page
1:40academic paper down to a table that only
1:44contains the core information that's
1:46relevant for me to get the key takeaways
1:49out of each study I strongly think that
1:52handwriting your notes when it comes to
1:54academic papers is the most wasteful use
1:57of time that you can do some simply
2:00because handwriting your notes has been
2:02proven to not actually help you with
2:03memorization or understanding the
2:05concepts the whole point of note-taking
2:07in my opinion is really just to identify
2:10and record the key takeaways out of each
2:13study and copy and pasting straight out
2:16of the paper into this template is
2:18honestly the most efficient way to get
2:20that done and then after you extract all
2:22the relevant information and put it into
2:24this template then you can spend
2:26additional time actually trying to
2:28memorize and understand the material so
2:31note-taking is one piece of the puzzle
2:34but note-taking is separate from
2:37actually memorizing and understanding
2:38the material in my opinion and so right
2:40now what I'm going to do is I'm going to
2:42show you guys how this template works
2:44and why the template that I'm using
2:47today might be a little bit different
2:49from the template that's going to work
2:51for you so as you can see here I have a
2:54couple studies about manager ability so
2:56I have one separate template for each
2:59subject area within Financial Accounting
3:02so this template is specifically for
3:03manager ability but I have other
3:05templates for other subjects for example
3:07I have a template for a CFO compensation
3:09Bank efficiency and so forth now every
3:12time I read a paper that is creating one
3:15additional entry in my template which is
3:18represented by that row
3:19so for example I have back in all 2011.
3:23so that's the author in the year that
3:25the paper was published I obviously have
3:27the title of the paper so CEO ability
3:29and management earnings forecast I want
3:32to keep track of the journal that the
3:34paper is published in I also want to
3:36keep track of the topic area that the
3:38paper is talking about so this one is
3:40talking about manager ability and
3:42management forecast but you can also see
3:43that for example the paper below even
3:46though it's also within manager ability
3:47but it's talking about another topic
3:49called income smoothing
3:51um sometimes papers will have key words
3:53in order to help you search that paper
3:55in a certain database for this
3:57particular paper it didn't provide any
3:58keywords but for other ones that they do
4:01provide something so here we jump into
4:04some of the columns that I have so first
4:06one I have is key takeaway so am I able
4:09to summarize a paper in one or two
4:11sentences and what is the key piece of
4:14learning that I got from reading this
4:16paper
4:17and I think it's really important to
4:19have a key takeaway because it really
4:21tests you on your understanding of the
4:23paper and if you are able to pretty much
4:25summarize 20 to 40 pages of the study
4:29into a couple sentences so first I have
4:31key takeaways next I have the key
4:33findings so these are the key findings
4:35of the paper so these are obviously
4:37going to be a little bit more detailed
4:38than the key takeaway itself and I'll
4:41show you guys where I typically collect
4:43the key findings out of the actual paper
4:45next I have something called purpose so
4:48purpose is all about what is the purpose
4:50of the studying being done you know is
4:52it trying to show us a new methodology
4:54of doing something is it trying to
4:56establish a new relationship like what
4:58is the whole point of this paper and
5:01that's really important because if you
5:02can understand what's the point of the
5:03paper then typically that can kind of
5:05speak to the contribution of the paper
5:07itself some papers will also talk about
5:09the motivation behind their studies so
5:10the authors will try to rationalize why
5:12they think that their study is important
5:14why they think that it's going to
5:16contribute to the literature
5:18um so understanding the motivation in my
5:20opinion is also pretty important next we
5:22have something called hypothesis
5:23development and Theory
5:25um and then the bright next so we have
5:27something called hypothesis so if you
5:29are doing research then the hypothesis
5:31represents pretty much the prediction
5:33that the author is trying to make in the
5:35study and so I will typically typically
5:38just copy and paste the hypothesis
5:40directly from the paper into the cell
5:41and then the authors also will try to
5:44explain why they're making that
5:47particular prediction you know like is
5:49what's the underlying mechanism or
5:51underlying reason they think that this
5:53prediction is going to behave in a
5:55particular way so that prediction could
5:57be because of an existing theory that
5:59was established in the literature in
6:01this case there's something called The
6:03Truman 1986 theory that the authors in
6:06this paper referenced it might also be
6:08because of results of previous studies
6:10that were done within the area
6:12that might help the authors motivate
6:15their hypothesis so not only
6:17understanding the prediction of the
6:18paper but also understanding the reason
6:20why that prediction is made is also
6:22really important the next set of columns
6:24kind of deals with uh data collection as
6:27well as a research design so because my
6:30field of research is financial
6:33accounting using empirical slash
6:35archival methods this is going to be
6:37really specific to my area of research
6:40but for example if you do another type
6:42of research maybe using Behavioral or
6:44field experiment then maybe these column
6:47names won't be as appropriate for you so
6:49feel free to definitely change the
6:51column that fits the type of research
6:53that you're conducting but because I'm
6:55all about empirical and archival methods
6:57it's important to me to keep track of
6:59you know what kind of databases they're
7:00using how they create their sample out
7:02of the population and what kind of
7:05regressions or ectometric techniques are
7:08using so I always keep track of the
7:10sample so specifically I take keep track
7:12of the years that the sample is covering
7:15so the period that the study is covering
7:17I keep track of the different types of
7:20data sources so you know where are they
7:22getting this data from is that a
7:23database that my university is
7:25subscribed to
7:27um as I talked about I do a lot of
7:28archival research so that's why my
7:30method is mostly archival but sometimes
7:31I might read a paper that's using
7:34empirical method sorry that's using
7:36experimental methods or maybe
7:37qualitative research that's still within
7:40manager ability by simply using another
7:42type of technique to perform their study
7:45and then because I am all about using
7:47archival data so the next set of columns
7:50is going to be about the regression or
7:53the empirical techniques that the study
7:55uses so I have a column for research
7:57design so you know are they using an OLS
8:00are they are they using maybe propensity
8:02to score matching maybe they're using a
8:05diff and diff that kind of gets all
8:07tracked in this research design problem
8:09and then I also kind of like to mention
8:10you just just what dependent variables
8:13being regressed on what independent
8:14variable so for example on this one the
8:17paper does you know three different
8:18types of three different types of
8:20regressions within their paper so I just
8:22make a note of what those three
8:24different research designs are and the
8:26next piece I like to kind of keep track
8:29of the dependent variables and the
8:31independent variables and the control
8:32variables so when you're doing research
8:35you might have heard something called
8:36the Libby boxes where it's pretty much
8:38this diagram that lets you keep track of
8:41what is the key independent and
8:43dependent variable that you're
8:44interested in on a conceptual level as
8:47well as on an operational level so
8:48conceptual level typically refers to you
8:51know what are the concepts that you're
8:52interested in studying
8:54and operational level will just refer to
8:56how exactly is the author measuring that
8:59conceptual construct and that's really
9:02important for you to keep track of as a
9:05researcher because it's very possible
9:07that you may want to measure a similar
9:09construct or the same construct and you
9:11may want to measure it the same way that
9:13the author did in their paper or if you
9:16feel that the author's way of measuring
9:17something is not ideal then maybe this
9:20is your opportunity to actually tweak it
9:22and make a better way of measuring that
9:24same construct so for example here
9:27one of the constructs that the paper
9:28looks at is the likelihood of issuing a
9:30management earnings forecast and the way
9:32that they operationalize it or measure
9:34it in the regression is to have this
9:36variable
9:38um a dummy variable that equals one if
9:39an annual management earnings forecast
9:41in year T and zero otherwise so just
9:44keeping track of the constructs and how
9:46they operationalize it in the paper is
9:47really important and I do that for both
9:49the dependent variable I also do that
9:52for the key independent variable of
9:54interest and then I also like to keep
9:56track of the different types of control
9:58variables that the author controls for
10:00in the regression again because if I'm
10:03interested in this area and I'm looking
10:04to do a study in this area I may have to
10:06use some of these same control variables
10:08in my study and when it comes to
10:11identifying what's the appropriate
10:12control variables looking at other
10:14studies within the area and relying on
10:17prior literature is a great starting
10:19point I also like to keep track of
10:20robustness tests and robustness tests
10:22are pretty much additional tests that
10:23the authors do to essentially try to
10:25convince you that what they find in and
10:27their main test still exists so they
10:31might you know expand the sample they
10:32might perform other empirical tests they
10:34might try to rule out alternative
10:36explanations they might measure things
10:38differently to see if they get the same
10:39results keeping track of robustness
10:41tests in my opinion is pretty important
10:42because you may have to do those similar
10:45robustness tests in your in your study
10:47and then here I have some other columns
10:49that sometimes I'll fill out but
10:51sometimes I won't depending on the paper
10:54itself and whether I find that
10:55information informative so for example
10:57here I have a column for cross-sectional
10:59tests so typically in the empirical
11:01archival World a lot of scientists will
11:03have cross-sectional studies to
11:04essentially split up this main sample
11:07into smaller sub samples to see whether
11:10or not the results that they find and
11:12their main results is driven by a
11:14certain sub Sample versus another
11:15subsample so sometimes if the paper
11:17doesn't have cross-sectional tests I'll
11:19leave this column blank
11:20I have a column for background so if
11:22there's any sort of background
11:23information in the literature review
11:25part of the paper that maybe I didn't
11:27know beforehand but I find really
11:28interesting or I feel that the
11:30information is really important then
11:32I'll kind of keep it in this column and
11:34then I have something called important
11:35quotes where sometimes you read a paper
11:38and there's and sometimes papers will
11:41kind of quote whether it's you know
11:43important people in the government or
11:45practitioners or maybe it's a quote that
11:47I read in someone else's paper and I
11:49really want to use that quote in my
11:50paper then I'll just kind of keep it
11:52keep a note of that quote within this
11:54template so these are the types of
11:57things that I kind of track currently
11:59sometimes I will make adjustments to
12:00this table for example I might have a
12:03future research question column where if
12:05I think of a research question that's
12:06related to the paper I might want to
12:08just to keep a note of that but overall
12:10this is the template that I use to
12:14essentially take notes on a paper and
12:17all these information that you see
12:19within the template this is all simply
12:21just copy and paste it directly from the
12:23paper into this template right now
12:25obviously when you're actually writing
12:26your paper please do not plagiarize the
12:29studies that you're referencing right
12:31you're obviously going to have to write
12:32things in your own words but for the
12:34sake of just synthesizing the
12:36information and just getting it on paper
12:39I think copy and pasting is totally fine
12:42and here these are usually the key
12:45pieces of information that I'm trying to
12:47extract
12:49um out of the paper now you may feel
12:51that there are certain columns here that
12:53don't apply to your area of research or
12:55you might feel that I don't have enough
12:57columns and you want to add more columns
12:58to the template definitely take this
13:01template with a grain of salt and
13:03customize it to the type of research
13:04that you typically do you also notice
13:08that the way that the template is
13:09formatted it's really geared towards
13:11academic papers for example I do read a
13:14lot of business press articles for
13:16example from The Wall Street Journal or
13:17from the New York Times I'm talking
13:19about accounting and the way that
13:22business press articles are written that
13:24doesn't really fit the template that I
13:26have right here so for those types of
13:28Articles whenever I read those I would
13:29typically just use a Microsoft Word
13:30document and kind of take notes the old
13:33fashion way
13:34um if you will but when it comes to
13:36academic papers then this is definitely
13:38the template that I think is going to be
13:40really helpful and what's great about
13:41this is that not only can you use this
13:43for any type of literature review that
13:45you do for a working paper or if you're
13:47taking a PhD seminar or Master seminar
13:50where you are reading papers and you
13:51have to kind of engage in discussion
13:53with Professor this is a great tool to
13:56have especially in class because let's
13:58say you want to talk about a particular
14:00paper then you have all the key points
14:02right here in front of you on your
14:03laptop screen and so it's very easy for
14:05you to kind of recall that information
14:07and be more active and more confident
14:09when you talk about the paper in
14:11addition if you're writing if you are
14:13planning to write your comprehensive
14:15exam and your comprehensive exam is open
14:16book and tests a lot of the papers that
14:19you talked about in your previous
14:21seminars then this again is a great way
14:24to synthesize all the papers that you've
14:26read in class especially when you're
14:27dealing with like 50 to 100 papers have
14:30everything organized in this really
14:31clean template and I think that this is
14:34a great tool for any sort of Masters or
14:37PhD students to have honestly even if
14:39you've already completed your PhD degree
14:40and you're a you know you're working as
14:43a professor I I think this template can
14:45definitely be really helpful to you
14:48okay so the next part of the video I do
14:50want to show an example of an academic
14:52paper specifically within financial
14:55accounting and I just want to show you
14:57guys how I annotate the paper and how I
15:00take the information from the paper and
15:02put it into that template so here I have
15:04an example of a typical Financial
15:06Accounting paper within the accounting
15:09literature you'll notice that a lot of
15:11papers are written in a particular way
15:13and you might notice that about the
15:15papers that you read in the journals
15:17that you're interested in so when it
15:18comes to accounting papers we typically
15:20have you know an abstract an
15:22introduction there's typically then a
15:24background or literature review section
15:26then maybe a theory development or
15:28hypothesis development then it goes into
15:30sample selection data sources research
15:34design results cross-sectional tests
15:36robustness tests and then a conclusion
15:38so those are kind of the main headings
15:40that exist within the accounting
15:42literature and I strongly recommend that
15:43as you are digging to your area of
15:45Interest try to keep a mental note of
15:48what are the headings or subheadings
15:49within the papers because those can
15:51actually be potential columns in that
15:54note template that I showed you guys so
15:56here we have the abstract so the
15:58abstract is a high level uh summary of
16:00the paper it's usually just about a
16:02paragraph and typically within the
16:03abstract you can kind of pick out key
16:06pieces of information that you can
16:07actually throw into your template so for
16:09example right now I made a note of the
16:11theory that they used within the paper
16:13so Capital crunch Theory I also
16:16highlighted the results
16:18um with the from the paper the abstract
16:20can also kind of give some hints about
16:23what the key dependent variable and
16:25independent variable of the study is and
16:27that's again stuff you can always put
16:29into your template and you can see here
16:31what I'm doing when I'm taking notes is
16:32I'm just highlighting the key pieces of
16:34information that I'm planning to copy
16:36and paste into my template and I'm just
16:38making some sort of little notes on the
16:40side indicating okay where do I want to
16:43slot this piece of information into my
16:45template so this is obviously saying
16:46that I want to copy and paste this into
16:48my theory column whereas this is going
16:50to be copy and pasted into my results
16:52column
16:56so here comes the introduction So within
16:59the introduction again it gives a high
17:01level uh view of the paper a lot more in
17:04depth compared to the abstract but still
17:06pretty high level
17:07and the introduction has a lot of
17:10information that you can definitely copy
17:12and paste into your paper but you can
17:13see here that I'm just kind of
17:15highlighting things that I find
17:17interesting so right now when I'm
17:20highlighting are essentially pieces of
17:22information that I didn't know about in
17:23the past
17:25um and based on what I'm seeing right
17:27now this information will probably kind
17:29of fall into the background section of
17:32my template because it's kind of talking
17:34about some institutional knowledge about
17:36Banking and lending and things like that
17:37you can also see how I have some little
17:40comments here onto the side
17:43um just about the paper but again I'm
17:45not handwriting a lot of stuff right I'm
17:48just highlighting key pieces of
17:50information that I may want to copy and
17:51paste into my template
17:55we can see a little bit more of that
17:56here so we can see here on the side I
17:58have very nice quote specifically I'm
18:00referring to the quote by the
18:02Comptroller of the currency John C Dugan
18:05right I also highlighted
18:07um you know for example this is the
18:08purpose of the paper I'm going to copy
18:10and paste that into the purpose column
18:11of my template I have I made a note
18:14about an important regulation in banking
18:15right then I want to keep note of so
18:17again just highlighting it for now
18:19and then when I'm reading the paper I'm
18:21also keeping note of these studies that
18:24this paper has cited and whether or not
18:27I think that those cited papers are
18:29things that I need to read in the future
18:31so for example I circled this financial
18:33stability Forum report
18:35um in red because I'm trying to tell
18:37myself that hey I think that this site
18:40is sourced from the paper is really
18:42important and I think that the knowledge
18:43in this report is something that I need
18:45to know as well
18:46so this is just a note to myself to read
18:48this after I finish the current paper
18:52but again just highlighting key pieces
18:54of information for example here I'm
18:56highlighting information about the
18:57hypothesis right
18:59I'm making notes about how things are
19:01being measured so this is the
19:02operationalization of some of the
19:04constructs I'm making note of the
19:06databases that are being used
19:08um this is I'm making notice just some
19:11key pieces of information in the
19:13research design right but again I'm not
19:15spending a lot of Time handwriting these
19:17notes
19:20here I just make note of that you know
19:21they did a cross-sectional test and here
19:23I see this is an example of the main
19:25finding so I just keep a note of that as
19:26well but overall it's very very light in
19:31terms of handwritten notes and really
19:33just picking apart the paper and
19:35identifying which pieces of information
19:37I want to copy and paste into my
19:39template
19:44again here's another example right I'm
19:47using my red pen to indicate that maybe
19:48I want to pay attention to these uh to
19:52accounting standards and maybe I want to
19:53read them after I finish reading the
19:56paper
20:00right here uh we jump into the
20:02hypothesis development section of the
20:04paper and all I'm really doing is just
20:06highlighting in red
20:08um you know where the hypotheses are in
20:10the paper what are some important
20:12theories again here I'm circling a side
20:14of paper that I think might be important
20:16for me to read into the future
20:19foreign
20:21now this part of the research design
20:22specifically for me because I am into
20:24empirical and archival research
20:26sometimes I'll actually take a
20:28screenshot of the actual regression
20:29that's um
20:31that they have in the paper so what I
20:33would typically do is use my Snipping
20:35Tool and just pretty much take a
20:36screenshot of this entire regression
20:38copy and paste it right into notion just
20:41so when I do want to reference back to
20:42the paper and I want to see how they
20:44designed their test then I can just bam
20:46refer to the screenshot within my notion
20:48rather than having to dig through all
20:51these pages of the paper it's just more
20:52efficient and obviously the research
20:55design part of the paper is going to be
20:57really important specifically what type
20:59of variables that they use how they
21:00operationalize it so just having a
21:02screenshot of the regression in my
21:03opinion is a great uh
21:06thing to have in your notes
21:11again here we're just having another
21:13example where again I'm just circling
21:15papers that I think might be important
21:17for me again I would have screenshotted
21:19this uh regression figure as well and
21:22just put that in my notes so when it
21:23comes to actually reading the paper I
21:25will switch between using the laptop or
21:26using a tablet so it's kind of a
21:29day-to-day thing you know some days I
21:30feel that reading on a laptop I'm really
21:32effective and I can focus really easily
21:33but sometimes I do want to kind of
21:35engage in the physical movement of using
21:38a pen and kind of writing it on
21:40something so whenever I feel like that
21:42I'll use my Microsoft Surface Pro 7 and
21:46then I'll just essentially open the PDF
21:48on my tablet and then use the Microsoft
21:50pen and make my annotations there so
21:53overall that's pretty much how I read my
21:54accounting papers and how I take my
21:56notes if you find that this template is
21:58helpful then I definitely suggest that
22:00you incorporate some version of that
22:02template into your day-to-day workflow
22:04especially if you're reading a lot of
22:05papers as a Masters or PhD student
22:07personally this way of studying has been
22:10really effective for me for the past
22:11year and I definitely see myself
22:12sticking with this method for the rest
22:15of my PhD program if you guys found the
22:17video helpful then please hit that like
22:18button and subscribe to the channel I do
22:20appreciate it a lot and if you guys are
22:22interested in following my PhD Journey
22:24well I got a lot more for you guys I'll
22:26see you guys in the next video peace

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This page contains the full transcript of HOW TO TAKE NOTES for RESEARCH PAPERS by Jonathan Yuan, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 4,388 words across 646 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

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