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Ellis Library Sourcepack for Sociology 8130
Advanced Social Statistics

Instructor: Takeshi Wada
Office: 318 Middlebush Hall
Phone & Email: 884-6173; wadat@missouri.edu
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 3:00-5:00pm or by appointment

Getting data for statistical analysis

Your class project requires that you replicate quantitative research from a published journal article. This implies several things:

  1. You will want to choose an article on a topic of interest to you.
  2. You will need to select an article which utilized datasets that are available to you now. Not every article cites publicly available data.  Generally speaking, if data collected by the federal government or by certain not-for-profit organizations, it will probably be available.   Data which has been archived in ICPSR or the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research is also available to you.  (Just avoid ICPSR's restricted data.)
  3. You will want to choose an article which employs a statistical method which is neither too simple nor too complex for your learning goals this semester.  If it is too simple, you will miss out on a great learning opportunity.  But if it is too complex, you may feel overwhelmed.  Your instructor can provide guidance with this.
  4. You will need to select an article which provides sufficient information on the statistical processes employed.  In order for you to fulfill the requirements of this project, your article will need to supply you with detailed explanations about the ways variables and scales are constructed.  It will also need to supply basic statistics such as frequencies for each variable used.  For more information on how to select an article based on its statistical reporting, consult your instructor.

Our library databases certainly allow you to find articles by subject (item #1 above), but they can't help you with #2, #3 or #4. 

We do have access to a tremendously useful online resource that allows you to search for articles which satisfy item #2 (datasets must be available). It is ICPSR's Bibliography of Data-Related Literature. Basically, it works like this:

  1. Look for articles by article title keyword or by journal title
  2. Under "Publication Type" choose JOURNALS in order to limit your results to just journal articles
  3. In the results list, click on "Related Data" to see and download the datasets used by the authors of that article.
  4. Attempt to download the data. (It will be necessary to establish an account.) If it turns out the data is "RESTRICTED," choose a different article. The process of applying for permission to use restricted data is too time-consuming to make it a suitable choice for this class.

If you choose to use a source other than the Bibliography of Data-Related Literature, you'll need to look around to see whether the data used in the article is available. Here's how you can do that:

  • Check the bibliography or methodology section of the article to find the title of the dataset used. Then look for that dataset in these places:
  • If the author collected data privately, you would have to contact the author and ask if it could be sent to you. This is a chancy proposition, not only because authors can be difficult to track down, but because they might not send you the data as soon as you will need it. Also, their data might not be accompanied by good documentation explaining variable names, labels, etc. and you could end up finding that it is unusable.  A possible exception to this guideline would be to choose an article written by a local Mizzou professor who is willing to be available to you during the course of this project should you have questions.

Finding articles

The Bibliography of Data-Related Literature does not provide abstracts for journal articles, but many of our library databases do, so you will probably be using these both resources.  The abstracts can help you identify the article topics, but ultimately won't be enough to make your final selection.  You will need to actually read the methodology sections of any articles you are considering to make sure they are suitable for this project.

To find articles starting from the MU Libraries Gateway page, click on the "Search for Articles on a Topic" link to go to a list of nearly 300 databases that index millions of articles. Click on All Subjects and then choose a subject you like, such as Sociology.  We list our databases in subject categories in order of importance and usefulness.  This is why you will find at the top of the Sociology list the Sociological Abstracts database.  It provides the most extensive in-depth indexing of the international serials literature in sociology and its complementary fields. Coverage is 1963 to the present.

If you wish, you may consult other categories listed under All Subjects such as Psychology, Women Studies, Health & Medicine. The Popular Databases category is particularly good for topics that are interdisciplinary.


Finding particular journals that contain the articles you want:

When you find an interesting article cited in a database, look on that page for a link to the full-text or pdf version. If you don't see that, click on the button. This will let you know if we have the article available electronically. If not, FIND IT @ MU will give you a direct link into the MERLIN catalog so you can see if we own the paper version. If we do not have it in either format, you could take a stab at finding it on Google. Remember that you may always put in an Interlibrary Loan request for any article we do not own.

Technical Assistance

Library Assistance:

If you have questions questions related to finding books, articles and other secondary sources,
contact Nancy Turner Myers, Social Sciences Librarian, 
office 164 Ellis Library, myersn@missouri.edu, phone 882-3342

If you have questions about finding and downloading data,
contact Marie Concannon, Government Documents and Data Services Librarian,
office 106-B Ellis Library,  concannonm@missouri.edu, phone 882-0748