Sociology Research Guide

Think About Topics From Class!  Maybe you discussed the following:

• Social stratification: race, class, gender
• Social institutions: family, education, religion
• Social movements
• Culture
• Deviance
• Demographics
• Media and communication
• Power dynamics

What were some of your favorite topics in class that you would like to look into further?

Topic Shop in the New York Times and other newspapers.

• Search "sociology" or any other topic that has interested you in class.
• Scroll through the articles in your search results to get ideas.
• Many articles will link to the original studies being discussed.
  • Example Articles

    • Don't Panic.  It's Just a Moral Panic.

    • They May Be Just Acquaintances.  They're Important to You Anyway

    • The Self-Destructive Effects of Progressive Sadness

Topic Shop in Magazines.

• Click Magazines in the top left.
• Use filters.
• Browse for ideas.

Topic Shop in CQ Researcher and SIRS Issues Researcher

• Browse issues you know are related to sociology.
• Browse newspaper and magazine articles within those issues.

More Places to Topic Shop (Recommended by Your Sociology Teacher):

• The Society Pages
• Contexts Magazine

Topic Shop in Wikipedia & Google.

• Use Wikipedia!
  • For example:  Sociology of Gender
• Do basic Google searches on anything that has interested you in sociology class.
  • Find news articles, organization websites, government websites, and wikipedia to help formulate a question.

• After conducting background research, determine what aspect of your topic to investigate.
  • Consider the mystery, debate, or controversies.
  • What interests you?
• Use question starters to help create a question: 
  • Who
  • What
  • Why
  • When 
  • Where
  • How
  • To what extent
• Put your question through some tests:

  • Answerable but not obvious?

  • Open? (not yes or no answer)

  • Simple?  (not multiple questions in one)

  • Debatable? (multiple perspectives)

  • Judgement or evaluation needed?

  • Narrow and focused enough?

• You will eventually develop sub-questions that support your primary question.
  • EXAMPLE: 
    • Main question:  Was Harry Truman justified in dropping the atomic bomb?
    • Sub question: How extensive was the damage and loss of life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
    • ****The sub question still answers the primary question.****

Select Resources/Source Types Most Appropriate for the Information Need.

For Example:

POPULAR PERIODICALS​​​​​

• Shorter
• Written for a general audience
• Written by the employees of the periodical who may or may not have credentials on the topic
• No technical language or jargon; easier to read and understand
• Little to no citations, and no bibliography/works cited list
• Contain advertisements and/or pictures

ACADEMIC PERIODICALS

• Longer 
• Written by experts for experts
• Written by authors (often many) with credentials, such as a PhD, MD, etc.
• Include technical language specific to the discipline 
• Typically include visual representations of data in charts, graphs, and tables
• Include a long list of references/bibliography
• Are PEER REVIEWED
  • A panel of experts reads each article submitted to a scholarly journal and provides feedback to the author(s) anonymously. The panel can accept submissions, ask for revisions, or outright reject them. The articles included in an issue of the journal went through the whole process, including revisions and final acceptance.

Science