The article must relate to your topic and it must be from a peer-reviewed journal
(see Handouts).
The article must be an original research article - not a review of prior research
or a literature review. In other words, the article should say something about collecting
data or analyzing existing data.
The two best on-line places to find an appropriate journal article are JStor and
Sociological Abstracts.
You may access both through the Evan's Library Main Web Page.
To find JStor and Sociological Abstracts, search for either under "Index/Database"
on the Evan's Library Page.
After accessing one of these databases, search under your topic and find an appropriate
article. If you are using the JStor database, you should choose their advanced-search
option and search only in sociological journals (psychology majors may also search
under psychology journals).
Look at the abstracts of several journal articles to find one that looks interesting.
Again, make certain that it is an actual research article, not a newspaper article,
book, book review, or literature review.
Download the entire article (not just the abstract) and read it. It
is usually best to download it in Adobe .pdf format.
After Finding and Reading an Appropriate Article, Do the Following:
A) Turn in a copy of the
article.
B) Turn in notes on the article. Your notes should include the following
information numbered and in the following order:
1. The complete and proper citation for the article in an appropriate
format (MLA, ASA, APA, etc.).
2. The research question the article was attempting to answer.
3. The source of the authors' data (existing/secondary survey data,
observation, experiment, etc)?
4. The major findings/results?
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