The research project is an opportunity to synthesize material we’ve discuss in the course and to display your data analysis skills.

Step 1. Formulate a sociological research question. Think about what aspects of society are implicated in the question, and the level of analysis (micro-, meso-, macro-). This will help you identify an appropriate source of data.

Step 2. Make an appointment to discuss your question and where to look for data with me.

*** You can make an appointment on Navigate or by email. Here’s the Navigate link: https://brooklyn-cuny.campus.eab.com/pal/nHZ6PLUa7I (The Navigate app is available for your phone or on the web. The sociology department is using it for advising. It makes contacting faculty much easier.) ***

Step 3. Search for data and identify at least one data source for your analysis. You might download these data or you might be able to read it into your notebook via an API at the site where you found the data source.

Step 4. Create a Colab notebook for your project and read in the data source. If you have multiple data sources, you will need to combine them into a single DataFrame. *** SHARE YOUR NOTEBOOK WITH ME AT THIS BENCHMARK. I will comment on your code and help you troubleshoot if you are having problems getting the data ready. ***

Step 5. Plan your analysis. Identify variables in your data that relate to your research question. How can you investigate if the variables are related? This analysis might involve multiple statistical tests. It might also involve data visualization. You can use the code library on this site to find the blocks of code you’ll need to do this analysis.

Step 6. Make an appointment to discuss your plan for analysis.

Step 7. Update your notebook with the initial analysis. This might be a table or a graph. *** SHARE YOUR NOTEBOOK WITH ME AT THIS BENCHMARK. I will comment on your code and help you troubleshoot if you are having problems getting the data ready. ***

Step 8. Review the rubric for the project: https://bcsocmethods2.commons.gc.cuny.edu/research-paper-grading-rubric/

Step 9. Prepare a draft. I am happy to review the draft and give you feedback. Because we are working from a template of a sociological research article, the word limit for the paper is 8,000 including references. The paper should be organized as follows: Introduction (explain the question and why it is important), Data (this is the data biography, explain why this data source is appropriate for this question), Analysis (explain how you analyzed the data and why), Discussion (explain what you found, what questions would you ask based on this analysis?).

Step 10. Submit the revised paper and final notebook by the date of the final exam for this course.