PoW #79: Reverse engineer your literature: Applying the pitch template to help understand academic literature
Robert Faff
Research Professor Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary; Emeritus Professor University of Queensland, Australia; Honorary Adjunct Professor of Finance at Bond University, Australia
What has reverse engineering got to do with academic literature? Reverse engineering is the process of extracting the essence of the knowledge embodied in a man-made object so as to be able to create something new based on this know-how. Imam Salehudin, undertaking his PhD at the University of Queensland Business School (UQBS) has explored using the reverse engineering process to extract key meaning from academic papers for his literature review.
Imam earned his Degree in Management and his Masters in Psychometrics at the University of Indonesia and then taught undergraduate courses at the University for several years as well as editing the South East Asian Journal of Management. “One of the first preparatory courses I took in my PhD used the pitching research template,” says Imam. The pitching template was developed by Prof. Faff at the UQBS to help RHD students articulate the essential elements of their research to an academic expert. “The idea is that the same things that need to be communicated succinctly in a proposal are more or less similar to the things that need to be extracted from an academic article,” Imam explains. “So the pitch template can be used to help PhD students to identify the key information in a scholarly article.”
A student undertaking a PhD needs to read and assimilate a lot of academic literature, but this is a learned skill and can be quite challenging to acquire. Imam has documented his experience of working through the pitch template to reverse engineer a paper, setting out each step that he took. “Before being introduced to the template, I used to read scholarly articles the ‘old fashioned way', using printed material and a highlighter pen. Without a framework though, by the time I needed to write up the literature review I had to spend a lot of time figuring out what the highlighted parts and annotations meant,” says Imam. “Now that I am using the pitching template to reverse engineer the papers I read, I actually have something tangible to show for it at the end that I can readily use for my literature review.” Imam’s final insight from his experience is to use the research pitch website, https://pitchmyresearch.com . This site provides a free platform to work on and save your pitch template anytime and anywhere.
You can read Imam’s full document that recounts his experience reverse engineering a paper using the pitching template and see his completed pitches, Appendix A148, in the online library of pitch examples here (link) to see how it captured all the elements of this study in a succinct and clear form, aimed at an academic expert.
Interested readers are directed to the following related URL links and free resources:
- Working paper “Pitching Research” available for free download from SSRN:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2462059
- AACSB Innovations that Inspire listing:
https://www.aacsb.edu/about/awards/innovations-that-inspire/recipients/
- 70 second video about “pitching research” – an AACSB Innovation that Inspires:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe8hpIw9gUU
- Online library of Pitch examples available for free download:
https://www.business.uq.edu.au/supplementary-material-pitching-research
- Online web portal for registered users to create their own research pitch (free registration):
- Related SSRN working papers:
- "The "Pitching Research" Concept: 2015, a Year in Review":
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2721528
2. "Mapping “Pitching Research” Tasks into the RSD7 Framework: A Pedagogic Perspective"
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2724451
3. “Pitching Research Evolution: An Illustrative Example on the Topic of 'Innovation and Financial Dependence'”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2776959
4. “Fantasy Pitching”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2782778
5. “Pitching Research for Engagement and Impact”
https://ssrn.com/abstract=2813096
6. “Pitching Research: A Pilot Experiment with UQ Winter Scholars”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2816233
7. “Fantasy Pitching II: Star Wars vs. Pokémon vs. R&D vs. Uber”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2827425/
8. “Learning from 'Pitching Research' Competition Winners: Insights and Reflections”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2891650
9. “PoW! Using Social Media to Leverage Research Visibility – ‘Pitch of the Week’ Posts in LinkedIn”
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2894069
10. “Motivating Postgrad Research Students to Pitch their Ideas: What have we learned from “Pitching Research” Competitions at UQ?”
https://ssrn.com/abstract=2899942
11. “Pitching Research: A Reverse-Engineer “Sparring” Experiment with UQ Summer Research Scholars”
https://ssrn.com/abstract=2903811
12. “A “Snowballing” Pedagogic Strategy for Pitching Research: An Illustrative Example in Finance”
https://ssrn.com/abstract=2906127
13. “Fantasy Pitching III: UQ Summer Research Scholars – the Role of “Money” in the 21st Century”
https://ssrn.com/abstract=2906617
14. “Pitching Research Lite: A Reverse-Engineering Strategy for Finding a New Research Direction “
https://ssrn.com/abstract=2909549
15. “UQ Summer Research Scholar Program: Insights and Reflections from the Pitching Research “i-TEMPLATES” Team”
https://ssrn.com/abstract= 2939489
16. “Fantasy Pitching IV: Batman, Donald Duck, Fast Food, SuperPowers, Self-determination”
https://ssrn.com/abstract= 2939489
17. “Increasing the Discoverability of Non-English Language Research Papers: A Reverse-Engineering Application of the Pitching Research Template”