Resources for Students & Researchers
Here is a list of resources I hope you may find helpful.
Learning Resources
Undergraduate Research Journals
The Silicon Valley Sociological Review - the refereed undergraduate research journal of the SCU Sociology Department
A list of national Sociology Undergraduate Research Conferences and Journals - collected by Barnard College
Quantitative Skills
Hands-on Programming with R - an introduction to R for folks with no coding experience
Introduction to Data Analysis & Visualization using Stata - introduction to Stata, including reference guides
OpenIntro Statistics - free, comprehensive textbook on statistics and data analysis
Percentage Change vs. Percentage Point Change - a key distinction for writing and interpreting statistics
Writing Skills
"Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars Over Usage" - by David Foster Wallace; part of my purpose as a teacher is to help you learn Standard Written English as a foreign dialect
Reproducibility & Transparency in Research
Manual of Best Practices for Transparent Social Science Research - by Garret Christensen, BITSS
Research Transparency Online Course - YouTube Course created by the Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences
GitHub Guides - guides to learn how to use GitHub, software to make version control easier and more efficient
The Workflow of Data Analysis Using Stata - by J. Scott Long; every social scientist using Stata needs to read this book
Equator Network - reporting guidelines for writing up research (or see APA reporting guidelines for psychology for a closely allied field)
Data Resources
The lists of datasets and data repositories can help provide a starting point for finding data for a research paper or project. I have used those with a * extensively in my own research and so may be able to assist students with questions about them.
Lists of Datasets / Repositories
ICPSR* - huge data repository with wide variety of datasets available
Data.gov* - U.S. Government's open data repository
Harvard Dataverse - data from all disciplines; also, a repository for replication datasets
Pew* - Pew makes its high-quality, nationally representative data on a variety of topics publicly available
NBER Data - economic-related data
Demographic and Health Program Surveys - population, health, HIV, nutrition; over 300 surveys in 90 countries
Disability-inclusive datasets - U.S. population surveys that include standard disability demographic questions
ED Data Inventory - list of education-related datasets from the Department of Education
SF OpenData - hundreds of San Francisco city datasets
Dataquest - blog post listing a number of great data resources
Panel Data
Panel data from U.S. nationally representative samples on a variety of topics
RAND American Life Panel - beginning in 2007
USC Understanding America Study* - beginning in 2014
GfK KnowledgePanel and NORC AmeriSpeak are also representative panels, but they do not freely share resultant data. You can, however, use their services to field your own survey.
Pew American Trends Panel - just started in 2014, sharing some limited data (look at individual reports)
Specific Datasets
These datasets are generally respected and widely used.
General Social Survey* - ongoing, nationally representative survey of U.S. life since 1972
IPUMS - U.S. Census data
IHIS* - U.S. Nationally representative survey related to health
Add Health - longitudinal study of health from adolescence to adulthood, includes network, educational, and biometric data
NLS (including NLSY) - National Longitudinal Surveys, looking at important life events and labor market outcomes
HINTS* - Health Information National Trends Survey
PIAAC - Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, assesses cognitive and workplace skills
Odds & Ends
Sociology as Profession
On Being a Scientist (PNAS) - Much of the tacit knowledge of the scientific professions made explicit; though the article is over two decades old, still quite true. Aside from the section on "Scientific Progress," I largely agree, and think this a valuable resource for students starting out in grad school or undergrads considering a career in academic research.
Other Helpful Pieces
Things I have found helpful throughout my work-life.
Two sides of the coin: how to do what you love; the ethics of needing to love what you do