Research Project Overview

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Research Project Step by Step Overview

I.  Introduction. 
Expectations include:

• Explain what you are attempting to study and why.
• Explain your research in the form of a question.
• Explain how the topic connects to sociology (1b)

1a. Identify what you’d like to study.  Brainstorm topic ideas.  What topics are you interested in?  Can you frame your interest into the form of a question?  Why are you interested in this topic?  Were you inspired by research that we read in class or some other source or something from your own life?   Brainstorm ideas.

1b. Focus the topic sociologically:   What group/people are you attempting to study?  Are you interested in studying how this creates and reinforces social norms and stability?  Are you interested in how this creates social inequality?  Are you interested in how this creates meaning between people – either values, norms, etc.? 

II.  Literature review.   
Expectations for your literature review include:

• Citing sociological sources
• Consulting several sources
• Explaining the distinct claims that the authors make 

In order to exceeding expectations, students should structure the literature review around different concepts/ideas by writing about an idea and then explaining how various sources connect to the idea  (This is as opposed to structuring the literature review around the sources and simply writing about each source and the ideas in it).

2a. Key terms/words/phrases.

Make a list of search terms for your topic. 

2b. Search the terms

Methodically research what has been published about your topic already. Keep track of which search terms reveal which results.  This is a gathering info phase - you should not be spending too much time reading articles yet.

    

1.  Also use the “The Society Pages,” a website of sociology resources, especially Discoveries page, and on the Contexts page, the In Brief section.

2.  Use academic sociology journal articles.  The SHS ILC database JSTOR will be especially helpful here.JSTOR, an online database that you can search by subject. Go to the SHS Library online where you can login to JSTOR under "Academic Journals". Click here to go directly to JSTOR Advanced search. Once you are logged on, scroll down to select "sociology" then search any subject you would like.

3.  Google search “sociology” and the relevant terms.  Carefully select sources from here based on the source info.

Make a list of the sources that seem relevant which you find with each set of search terms.

2c.  Review the Literature

Once you have gathered the research that is available, read through the most relevant sources.  Note the citation information for each relevant article you study. You should add each article to a bibliography and annotate/summarize these articles.  What does the source say about your topic? 

2d.  Write your literature review. 

In your research project, you should make sense of the background research you find.  You might want to start with an outline that organizes what you found.  How does the research fit together?  What story does the research tell?  What information is left out of the previous literature?

III.  Conclusion or Hypothesis 
Expectations include:
Having a thorough conclusion or hypothesis that addresses your original question(I) in light of the research you find in your background literature review (II).

After making sense of the literature review, write either a conclusion or hypothesis about what the answer to your original question is.  Your conclusion or hypothesis should include operational definitions.  What exactly was the conclusion?  What exactly did the research study?  For example, if you are studying "violence" in the "media", how did the researchers define "violence"?  What counts as violence?  What counts as media?  What was specifically studied?

3a.  Conclusion:  If you find research that answers your question, explain what what did you conclude?  Why?  And what sources were most helpful?

3b.  Hypothesis: If it is a hypothesis, include an explanation about what you think the answer to your question might be and how the research supports that, even if it is indirectly supporting it.

IV. Moving Forward: Propose Research, Do Research or Propose Policy Changes.

This last section should explain, based on your research, what to do next to understand your topic.  You can explain what research still should be done and why and how.  This can be considered a research proposal.  Basically, you are suggestion what research should be done next.   Second, you may actually conduct research using some of the accessible data on my blog page or even gather your own research through surveys or interviews or qualitative methods.  A third option for this section is proposing policy changes for addressing your topic.  What should be done by individuals or institutions to address the problem that your research studied.  

V.  Citations: Have a Bibliography (or footnotes if you prefer).
You should cite your research in your document.  Do not be afraid to cite other research.  This is the point of the literature review!  You can cite either within your writing or in parenthesis after the research you cite.  These citations might be either direct quotes or just ideas that are paraphrased.  Either way, you should be sure to cite these both.  Citations should include author and date within the paper and then in a bibliography at the end, include the whole citation.  There is an ASA format, but I don't mind if you use MLA or whatever you are familiar with, just be consistent.  Below is a picture of in-text citations and the bibliography page.

Here is an example of a literature review from one of my students.



Here is a second example.