2SocResearch, Lesson 2: Finding Primary Source Research in Sociology

HW: Gang Leader for a Day 

Primary Sources in Sociology

As opposed to just explaining or citing research like secondary sources do, primary sources publish the actual research that the social scientist conducted.  This includes the methods they used to gather data and the data itself.  

Today, we will examine three places where primary source sociology is available.  Your goal is to find an original research article from one of the sources below.

Place 1:  Institutions that publish primary source research 

Some institutions publish research as their primary goal.  This is one example of sociologists doing sociology for a living.  These research organizations often publish the data sets that their research is based on. 

Many of these institutions publish reports for the general public so the advantage here is that they are likely going to be easier to read.  But the disadvantage is that they will be less thorough.

Below is a list of institutions that publish primary research.  I want to point these institutions out both as examples of places you can work and also as sources of primary research.  

• PEW https://www.pewresearch.org/category/publications/
• Census  https://www.census.gov/ (click on browse by topic)
• National Center for Education Statistics
• Stanford Center on Poverty & Inequality
• Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Data from U of Michigan's Monitoring the Future - Data on Teens and behaviors, attitudes, values  

Choose one of the links above.  Click on it and try to find some original research that they published.

Place 2:  Journals that publish primary source research

There are a number of journals that publish sociological research.  The American Sociological Association supports many of the journals that publish primary sociological research.   On the links below you can see the latest issues for each of the journals, the table of contents, and selected articles. 

The advantage of searching journals this way is that they include the most recent publications - articles that would not be in JSTOR yet.

Journals

• American Sociological Review
• Environmental Sociology
• Health and Social Behavior 
• Race and Ethnicity
• Sociology of Education 
• Social Psychology   
• And this link from the ASA provides the most downloaded and most cited journal articles of the last year.

 

Choose one of the journals above and click on a selected article.  (You do not have to read the whole article) 

2.  What journal did you visit?  What was the article about?

Place 3:  JSTOR and primary source research

The most efficient way to find primary research in journals is using the research tool called JSTOR.  JSTOR is short for "journal store", an online library of journals.  JSTOR only lets you see journals that are a few years old, so if you want the most recent research, you have to go to the latest issues of the journals themselves.  However, JSTOR is still very useful.  It archives dozens of journals in sociology alone, not to mention all the other subjects you might take in college.   

There are two disadvantages for using JSTOR.  First, the archive does not have the most recent publications.  The journals usually do not get put into JSTOR until they are a few years old.  And secondly, you need to have access to the archive which usually requires institutional access (although you can buy an individual membership).

Fortunately, our school has an institutional account to JSTOR through the ILC.   Click here to go to the SHS Library where you can login to JSTOR under the "Academic Journals" tab.  Or, if you are on campus, click here to go directly to JSTOR "Advanced search".  

JSTOR

Click here to go to the ILC where you can login to JSTOR under the "Academic Journals" tab.

Here is how to search JSTOR:

 

Advanced Search

After you click on JSTOR on the ILC website, click on "Advanced Search" 

(Or, if you are on campus, click here to go directly to JSTOR "Advanced search").  

 

Key Words 

Type in the key words/topics that you would like to search.

Try different search terms - use synonyms such as "school" in one search then "education" in another search.

  

Articles

Select only "articles" in the filtering menu on the left side - so you don't get results from reviews or book chapters.

 

Sociology 

Scroll down to select "sociology" under search by subject.  That will limit your search to only journals that are sociological.  

Additional tips for finding research:  

• open a few different articles that are possibilities then try different search terms and open more.  This might help you find the most relevant articles before you waste time reading one less relevant.

• quickly read the abstract or introduction to decide if the article is worth looking at in greater detail.

• start out with a search for general terms then you can narrow down by adding other terms or dates.

• if you find an interesting secondary source (such as from our previous lesson), note who the researcher was and try searching for their last name. 

Take a few minutes to explore JSTOR.  Find a primary sociology research article in JSTOR that is about a topic that you are interested in.  Search for a topic that you are interested in.  You will use this article for the next week or so as we move through the rest of the unit.

Here is the Google Form for this lesson.

1.  What article did you find?  List the article's citation information.    

(JSTOR will create the citation for you, or use this model: Author Last Name, First.  Article Title.  Journal Title. Publisher, Year.)

3.  Which institution did you visit?  What research did you find?