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Sociology

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Sociology

How to Read a Scholarly Article

A brief tutorial (2:34) by Western Libraries describing how to read a scholarly article.  

How to Read a Scholarly Article by Western Libraries is licensed CC BY-NC 4.0

Picking Your Topic IS Research!

When you pick your topic, it's not set in stone. Picking and adjusting your topic is an integral part of the research process!

Attribution: Picking Your Topic IS Research? by NCSC Libraries is licensed under a CC 3.0 BY-NC-SA US license

All About Peer Review

Scholarly articles typically communicate original research or analysis for other researchers, and go through a peer review process before they are published by an academic journal. This brief video takes a closer look at that process and addresses some of its limitations.

All About Peer Review by CSUDH Library is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

The Peer Review Process

So you need to use scholarly, peer-reviewed articles for an assignment...what does that mean? 

Peer review is a process for evaluating academic studies before they are published by an academic journal. These studies typically communicate original research or analysis for other researchers. 

The Peer Review Process at a Glance:

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Looking for peer-reviewed articles? Trying searching in a library database and look for options to limit your results to scholarly/peer-reviewed or academic journals.

undefined Data & Statistics

Datasets are the raw pieces of information that are collected through surveys and other research tools and analyzed through statistics like "55% of state prisoners were serving sentences for violent offenses at year-end 2016" (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2017). Researchers publish statistics from individual studies in academic journal articles, but comprehensive statistics are also collected by non-profit research groups and government agencies at the local, state, national, and international level and published on the web for the public. 

When would I need to find statistics and datasets? If you're working on a research project about a community or social issue, you might use statistics collected by nonprofit or government researcher to describe your population/problem and show why its important. 

Try searching in...

 

Evaluating Web Resources

CRAAP is an acronym for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. View the brief tutorial (2:16) by Western Libraries describing how to evaluate sources using the CRAAP test.

Evaluating Sources by Western Libraries is licensed CC BY-NC 4.0