Fall, 2004 (Roos, Soc. 311)

Assignment 2: Analytic Literature Review (due Tuesday, September 28th)

This assignment will give you an opportunity to move further ahead on your final project. Take the dependent variable you used in Assignment 1 and do an analytic literature review of a minimum of three research articles (or books) that have addressed the issue you wish to examine. [For example, in my illustrative answer to Assignment 1, I wanted to understand variation in toleration of pornography. Attitudes toward pornography is thus my dependent variable.] Note: these articles must be research articles from scholarly journals or edited volumes (not magazines, newspapers, or websites). Or you may choose to use scholarly books.

Your task for Ass. 2 is to research the dependent variable you have chosen for your final project, and then summarize what you find in 2 to 3 double-spaced pages. A Rutgers University librarian gave you a preliminary overview of how to use the electronic and nonelectronic resources available through the Rutgers Library. You might also find it helpful to consult Appendix A in Chambliss and Schutt (to help you to find information), and Chapter 10 (to help you evaluate the research articles you find). More generally, Ch. 10 will help you throughout the semester to better plan and write your final project.

For this step in the research process, present your writeup as follows:

First, in a first paragraph, repeat your theory and hypothesis statement from Ass. 1, and specify which is your dependent variable and which is your independent variable.

Second, summarize each relevant article (or book) in its own paragraph (see exhibit 10.2 on p. 249 as a guide about how to read a research article). At the minimum, answer these questions about each article (in prose language): 1) what is (are) the research questions addressed? 2) what data are used? 3) what sample is used? 4) what dependent variable(s) is (are) used, and how is it (are they) measured? 5) what are the independent variables used, and how are they measured? 6) what data analytic techniques are used? 7) what are the key findings?

Third, describe how these articles help you reframe your hypothesis, or not. Will you use a different independent variable than the one you initially selected? Are there several independent variables you would like to use to better understand variation in the dependent variable?

Fourth, provide a reference for each article and/or book. Use the format specified in the references for Chambliss & Schutt (p. 317). Here is an example for a book:

Becker, Howard S. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press.

Example for a journal article:

Aseltine, Robert H., Jr., and Ronald C. Kessler. 1993. "Marital Disruption and Depression in a Community Sample." Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 34 (September):237-251.

Example for an article in an edited volume:

Adler, Patricia A. and Peter Adler. 2000. "Intense Loyalty in Organizations: A Case Study of College Athletics." Pp. 31-50 in Qualitative Studies of Organizations, edited by John Van Maanen. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Finally, for each article/book you review, include the title page and table of contents (for a book) or the first page (of the article). Turn these xeroxes in with your assignment.