Research Review

Assessment 2:  Research Review  Click here for a copy.

Homework: Read this for Mon.

1.  Cite the research.  Here is the guide for the American Sociological Association:

https://guides.library.unk.edu/c.php?g=510530&p=3488909

Here an example citation:

Campbell, Mary E. 2009. "Multiracial Groups and Educational Inequality: A Rainbow Or a Divide?" Social Problems 56(3):425-446.

2.  Summarize the research.  Explain what they are studying in everyday language using just a few sentences for each part of the article.  Usually, a research article contains these aspects:     

Introduction – what is the author attempting to study?  Why are they interested in the topic? What are the terms/concepts that they are attempting to use to frame their research?

             

Literature review – what background research did the author do?  Usually an author cites other studies that have been published before.  Describe the previous research. How far back does the author go?  What type of previous research does the author explain the most?

Hypothesis – does the author state a hypothesis before conducting original research?

Method – what method(s) does the author use for the research?  Are there multiple methods?  Use some of the concepts from the chart posted yesterday to describe the research.

Data – what is some of the important data that the author finds?  What are the notable statistics?

What does the author conclude? Do they have suggestions for moving forward?

3.  Thinking about the social network activity we did and the reading by Joel Charon, what categories/group(s) is the research talking about?  Identify any statuses that are being studied.  Is this a study of intersectionality at all?

4.  Think back to the boat activity and macro/micro sociology.  Is this a macro or micro sociological study?  Why?

5.  Identify ingroups or outgroups for you in the study.  Explain how the research sheds light on a group in the study; how does the research paint a more complex/diverse picture of a group.  How could this be used to combat outgroup homogeneity?

Finding Good Research

Sociologists use data to understand the world.  But it is important to know where the data is coming from.

SHS Library has a lesson on sources here.

There is a difference between biased news and fake news.

Don't be fooled by the appearance of the page:  a professional looking page, a .org extension, links all might confuse you to thinking the page is not what it is.

Read laterally - go outside the page to learn about it.  Snopes, Sourcewatch, Wikipedia, allsides
Find the source of the article, who published it?  Who funded it?

More news on the internet is fake than real!

That is why it is important to pay attention to sources.  Many sources in the chart above contain explanations of sociology studies.  For example, The Atlantic and the NY Times often have stories that cite sociology studies or summarize sociological research.

A great secondary source in sociology is the sociology magazine called Contexts, published by The Society Pages. 
The Society Pages contains explanations or summaries of research.
Use Discoveries page
and the In Brief section
to peruse the research.  Find an article that is interesting to you.  What is the research about?