Hello, Class!
This guide mostly focuses on finding original research in scholarly journals, to support your research evaluation and Capstone Project proposal and annotated bibliography.
Find help with APA Citation using the "APA Citations" link.
If you have any questions, please let us know! Our emails are: ejweigar@hacc.edu (Lisa); and jlgarner@hacc.edu (J.L.); and kestewar@hacc.edu (Katie).
We would also be happy to meet with you for a Zoom appointment, to discuss your research:
For this assignment, you will be required to find a complete report of an ORIGINAL (primary source) sociological research study to evaluate (You are not writing a research paper but beginning a literature review). Appropriate reports should be found in professional journals and books, but you may not use newspaper reports, general magazine articles, or website postings for this assignment. All elements of the research process (Hint: Look for terms such as problem/theory, background, sample and population, measures, methods or methodology, and results/findings, conclusions and references) must be addressed within the report you evaluate. A good rule: If you cannot answer all the questions asked below, then you probably need to continue looking for original research. Library databases can be accessed from the Library tab on MYHACC or from hacc.edu. You must be logged into your MYHACC account to access databases. Once at the library homepage, you can access a course guide and tutorial by clicking on "LibGuides,” then select “Sociology” or “Lancaster” and "SOC-201 St. Pierre." Look for a sociological topic of your interest (family studies, gender discrimination, global inequality, etc.) This assignment can also help you begin looking for academic resources for your research projects if you choose to focus on your chosen topic. Once you have located your sociological research study: (1) Read the report, (2) answer the compound 5 questions below, (3) type answers into an MS Word document, and (4) turn in a pdf copy of the article you evaluated and your Word document on the due date to the D2L Dropbox. I must receive both components for grading. Each element of the evaluation will be scored on a 10 point scale for a total point score of 50 (5 x 10= 50). A score of 10 on any element means that all questions are answered and evaluation was thoughtful and complete. A score of 5 means that answers were somewhat incomplete and evaluation needed further development. A score of 0 means that questions were not answered and evaluation was not completed for that element. Please complete the following elements of your evaluation:
1. Overview: Please APA Cite the article you are evaluating (Author Last Name, First Initial, Year, Title, Journal Title, Volume, Issue, Page Numbers—see APA guidelines) and summarize the social problem or issue addressed by the research. What questions did the research address? Who did they study? What was the major conclusion? (A pdf Copy of article must be attached to your submission).
2. Sample: Who did the researchers sample for the study? (Note the characteristics of the population sampled.) Does the sample represent the population it claims to represent? Why or Why not?
3. Method: Which of the following methods were used to gather the data: survey, content analysis, observation, experiment, case studies, or secondary analysis? Do the conclusions drawn fit the research method used? Explain.
4. Findings: Provide a summary of the major research findings/results. Does this study suggest a new outlook or perspective on this social behavior or relationship? Explain.
5. Overall Assessment: Do you agree with the scientists’ findings? Why or Why not? Based on your evaluation of the information and what you are learning about sociological research, how would you rate the overall quality of this research? 1= junk. Up to 10=good scientific information
Your professor wants you to find an original research article. “What's that?” Not all journal articles are original research articles. The one you're looking at now could be an original research article, a research review article, or a theoretical article, book review, editorial, or other unimportant stuff you don't really need right now. So how do you figure out what you're looking at?
Original research articles are written by scholars who are conducting experiments or surveys to generate new knowledge. For example, do llamas like mohawks, dreadlocks, or mullets? This researcher surveyed 800 llamas to see their hair preferences. Research review articles are written by scholars who survey important literature published on a topic. They might spot some gaps in knowledge or suggest a new way of thinking about something. For example, do llamas like mohawks, dreadlocks, or mullets? This researcher gathered what 25 major scholars have said about llama hair preferences and suggests that llama hair trends are actually moving towards afros.
Here are some clues for original research articles. The introduction briefly explores and cites what others have found about the topic and leads into the study that the author conducted. Under the methods section, you learn about participants and procedures also there are findings where you'll see raw data and sometimes charts. Then lastly, some conclusions and discussion about what that data means. For research review articles, you might see “clinical review” or “systematic review” or “review” in the title header or abstract. The whole article is one big literature review; you'll see references everywhere. In the end, the author will give their opinion about the topic. Don't forget about the large list of references at the very end of the article. Follow them out to find other people's research. So there you have it.
Now you know the difference between original and research articles. If you find an article that doesn't fall in these two categories, it could be something else, but we'll leave that for another time.
"Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes in the harvest and the playtime." ----W.E.B. DuBois
