Questions tagged [social-science]

On standards or conventions specific to social science as an academic discipline, and programs that lead to a degree in this field

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How to conduct research as a non-Latino in a Latino-studies research institute?

I will be conducting research in a Latino-studies research institute next summer. I will probably be the only non-Latino researcher in the institute that summer. I’m also approaching my research from ...
dabberson567's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
55 views

Am I eligible for a fellowship doing interdisciplinary work?

I'm pondering a Masters (thesis) in Computer Engineering after I graduate undergrad. I also have a subject matter I want to research that will probably require a fellowship in order to conduct my ...
dabberson567's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
142 views

I am writing a briefing paper, and it only consists of facts and citations

I am writing a briefing paper, and it only consists of facts and citations. Literally every sentence is a quote or a link to another source. The topic of the paper is pretty much covered and there ...
rocketman's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
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How detrimental is a large lab cohort to a graduate students’ success? [duplicate]

A PI I might potentially apply to is planning on making three or so offers. Said PI only has a few students at present which I think is the reason for their doing so. I worry that I will not get my ...
Sam's user avatar
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7 votes
4 answers
732 views

How should one proceed when they receive no job offers after a considerable amount of applications?

I'm getting way ahead of myself, but being nervous on the job market I asked an advisor what happens should a candidate receive zero job offers. To which the reply was, "That never happens." I'm sure ...
user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
314 views

How to establish inter-rater reliability as a sole PhD researcher

I'm doing a PhD in the social sciences and want to use an observational method to analyse audio recordings of social work conversations. I will be using an established behavioural coding manual (the ...
CharlieW's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
275 views

How can someone be a co-author in a paper by just presenting undocumented evidence?

This recent paper is about birds of prey spreading fires. Some of the co-authors are firefighters which basically tell their personal experience as eyewitnesses to the behavior of these birds but do ...
Herman Toothrot's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
171 views

How to prepare for grad school? [with 1 year to spare]

I plan to enter graduate school (MA+PhD) in September 2018, which means I have something of a ‘gap year situation’ ahead of me [not in a strict sense, as I’ve been working for a number of years now]. ...
Oatmeal Durkheim's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
400 views

Academic Job Mobility in the European Context

In the United States it is not uncommon to apply to academic jobs all over the country. Personally, I do not know a single person who limited his or her search to just one state (i.e. Massachusetts). ...
Oatmeal Durkheim's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
109 views

Study expanded from three to five rounds: How to write this down?

Update I will suggest treating the email communication as a figure and adding a note to the figure caption. IMO a caption is overkill when the appendix title is sufficient, but it's an ok tradeoff to ...
RJo's user avatar
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0 votes
4 answers
424 views

How to efficiently get a mention of your just accepted paper in journals like Nature and Science

We have made a very important scientific breakthrough in the field of biomedicine. We have filed the patented and the scientific publication (in a journal with impact factor around 9.0) was published ...
Open the way's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
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Applying to PhD programs when you have two research interests

I am in the process of trying to formulate my statement of purpose/intent for a PhD in criminal justice. I’m not sure how to go about this when I have two distinctly different areas that I’m very ...
GradGirl90's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
210 views

How to get SCI impact factor from other than Journal site

I could see the IF of journal I am looking for in their site. My problem is Thomsor Reuters report lists the journal as indexed in both SCI and SSCI, but kournal home page says its indexed in SSCI ...
user5507's user avatar
  • 250
2 votes
1 answer
6k views

Where to put the theoretical framework in a PhD dissertation (social sciences)

My dissertation consists of an introduction, background, literature review, methods/research design section, and a chapter for every aspect of a policy issue that I'm addressing. My theoretical ...
PapayaCat's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
584 views

Is it okay to work on a research project with a professor at a different university, in addition to main PhD project?

In the context of a social sciences PhD in the UK, I want to know (i) whether it is permissible to work on another research project; and (ii) whether there are any general practices, if I choose to ...
plankton123's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
196 views

Publishing in a SSCI indexed journal for Computer Science Researcher

I am working in an interdisciplinary area and most of my area specific journals are available in journal which are indexed by SSCI instead of SCI. But some people told that for computer science ...
user5507's user avatar
  • 250
6 votes
2 answers
435 views

How to organize a work-in-progress workshop for PhD students in the field of law and related social sciences?

I would like to organize a work-in-progress workshop for PhD students at my university. How can I make sure that the participants really profit from the workshop and receive valuable feedback?
Gentiana's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
181 views

What are cautions to take with second hand data in an interview?

When analyzing second hand information in a data set (participant is recounting someone else's experience), if you cannot access that person to confirm their experience, what are some cautions to take ...
curious's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
109 views

Applying for terminal MA in sociology, concerned about weak letters and missed funding deadlines. Is it better to put off application for a year?

I'm strongly interested in a terminal MA in Sociology (because I am currently not willing to commit to the length of a US PhD program) and know that I want to work in research for social policy. I'm ...
Alexander Eichner's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
58k views

When referring to races, should 'black' and 'white' be capitalized? (MLA)

I was assigned to write about the relationship between poverty and crime, and in my research, race came up as a factor. I'm supposed to use the MLA format. Should 'black' and 'white' be capitalized ...
Zenon's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
118 views

Measuring the Effect of Public Relations on Scientific Journals Impact Factor?

I’m looking at the correlation between communications outreach and a scientific journal’s impact factor/citations. I intern for a communications department at a University’s engineering school and we ...
user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
555 views

Does translating an academic work in the humanities or social sciences improve your CV?

I've been asked to collaborate in an edited book that will collect important contributions to the field X, in the humanities/Social Sciences. The volume will be published in French, so I was asked to ...
Arturo Belano's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
184 views

Job Market Cover Letter - Mention undergrad experiences?

I am on the academic job market in America in the social sciences. I am applying to R1/R2s, with a few liberal arts colleges sprinkled in. I've heard from a few people that mentioning undergrad ...
Julia's user avatar
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4 votes
4 answers
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Hypotheses that cannot be sufficiently tested

My understanding is that a hypothesis is not scientific unless there is a way to sufficiently test it. Is it ever acceptable to present a hypothesis that cannot be sufficiently tested? I can ...
user5508297's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
388 views

How to conduct academic research across different fields as a undergrad?

I'm a freshman computer engineering major doing a summer research internship at a large public metropolitan university . My internship is a bit unusual. My internship is based in a Latino Studies ...
Dani's user avatar
  • 23
7 votes
1 answer
2k views

How long should an academic CV be for someone applying to post-doc positions in Europe?

I am preparing my CV for applications to post-doc positions in the field of social sciences. I will apply to positions in the EU, mainly in German language countries. I have updated my CV with my ...
HATEthePLOT's user avatar
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18 votes
4 answers
3k views

Does the term “science” encompass humanities and the social sciences?

I’m not a native English speaker and want to get a better grip on the nuances of the term science. In my native tongue, the word I’d use for science also refers to humanities and the social sciences. ...
Vincent's user avatar
  • 1,809
48 votes
6 answers
8k views

What constitutes a declarable conflict of interest in gender studies?

From Wikipedia: A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial interest, or otherwise, one of which could possibly ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
31 votes
5 answers
2k views

How to overcome preconceived ideas about social scientists?

I have the opposite problem to this question. Often when I talk to someone from a 'hard' scientific field I am 'taught' how statistics work or how programming works. It is a bit like being mansplained ...
Kenji's user avatar
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120 votes
8 answers
11k views

How to argue against questionable research practices such as P-hacking and Harking?

I have come into conflict with co-authors when being asked to do things that I consider to be questionable. Once I was told to try every possible specification of a dependent variable (count, ...
Kenji's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
1k views

Classifying empirical and non-empirical research in the social sciences

I am looking for a definition or a classification system (or a reference to an existing system) that can be used to reliably classify a very large set of articles into empirical vs. non-empirical ...
Brian P's user avatar
  • 2,801
19 votes
1 answer
389 views

What is the impact of a radical change of opinion for early-career academics?

I'm wondering what are the potential consequences of a change of mind in the social sciences and humanities. More specifically, what would happen concretely if I publish a peer-reviewed article in ...
Arturo Belano's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
795 views

Should a full manuscript be available for a book proposal?

I've been given some conflicting advice about preparing book proposals and manuscripts for academic presses. I'm aware that writing books is a lengthy process etc; however, I've also been told by a ...
postagepaid's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
721 views

Is it worth submitting papers to "graduate" peer-reviewed journals?

I am a first year PhD student in the social sciences at a Canadian institution, and I'm wondering whether it's worth submitting a paper to a "graduate" peer-reviewed journal. This would be my first ...
Arturo Belano's user avatar
10 votes
4 answers
1k views

How to intervene in a course that is failing to meet expectations?

All MA students in my graduate program (social sciences) are required to take a course titled 'Thought and Theory'. Ostensibly, the course should serve as an in-depth introduction for students to the ...
GabeFS's user avatar
  • 109
-3 votes
1 answer
419 views

Can somebody paste links to examples of phd theses without acknowledgements? [closed]

I read this question and the answers, and found it interesting: PhD thesis without acknowledgements I would like to ask some follow-up questions to this topic. Speaking for myself, I have a long ...
Ben O.'s user avatar
  • 1
10 votes
4 answers
92k views

The difference between literature review and background sections of a dissertation

I was assuming these two were the same. What is the difference between them? How does one relate to another? The context here is an MA (Master of Arts) level social science dissertation in UK ...
co co's user avatar
  • 101
-2 votes
2 answers
292 views

How many people does it take to establish a theory? [closed]

There are often theories published by scientists in both the hard sciences and social sciences based on new understanding of fundamental science and better data collecting mechanisms that runs in ...
Fraïssé's user avatar
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3 votes
2 answers
152 views

In the social sciences, does it make sense to embark on a longer-term project but write a dissertation on one part of it?

I realize this is field- and topic-specific but I'm hoping some of this is generalizable. I'm in the social science side of information science and narrowing down dissertation topics. Some of what I'...
Philip's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
244 views

Is the distinction between qualitative and quantitative methodology still significant today? [closed]

Some scholarly articles explain in detail the epistemological and ontological differences of the two methods, while some argue that the distinction between them is now blurred. I try to reconcile this ...
user32577's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
307 views

How to narrow down focus in humanities/social sciences?

I’m looking to enroll in a social studies/humanities undergraduate course, but I’m unsure of which subjects to focus on in my studies. I have ambitions to progress on to postgraduate study, research ...
yellow-saint's user avatar
74 votes
14 answers
9k views

How should a social scientist deal with envy of disciplines that are more quantitatively rigorous?

I am a student in social science who got into quantitative research at the start of my graduate school. Since then, I have had the valuable opportunity to take many Statistics classes and become aware ...
social_science_phd's user avatar
16 votes
2 answers
2k views

How do people in academia know whether their research, result, theorem or thesis is original work?

I am curious as to how academia continues itself without replication or reinventing the wheel. So many academicians in so many areas of work, how would one ever find out whether the work he or she is ...
Fraïssé's user avatar
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6 votes
2 answers
340 views

Is there a branch of sociology that deals with nutrition and active lifestyles?

(Please excuse my ignorance if this is an obvious question, but my Googling skills don't seem to be up to par today.) I was just wondering if there is a branch of sociology that deals with health and ...
user31053's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
5k views

Translation of Dr. rer. nat. outside of Germany

Psychology at universities in Germany is either in the natural sciences or in philosophy, depending on the university. This affects the kind of academic title you get. People doing their doctoral ...
Daniel Wessel's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
639 views

What is the strategy to identify natural experiment as a PhD student?

As social scientists become more concerned with causal inference, a good thesis these days needs some sort of quasi-experimental strategy. For example, an economist wants to know the effect of ...
Heisenberg's user avatar
  • 1,456
1 vote
1 answer
406 views

Is it possible to find a PhD position in social sciences without having letters of recommendation?

I am a European scholar. I would like to do a PhD dissertation in USA on an original and unpopular subject from a social science standpoint. I would like to empirically investigate the subject, which ...
Always learning's user avatar
8 votes
6 answers
563 views

Should I take undergraduate CS classes if all I do is applied software dev and data science?

I am a PhD student in social science who got interested in programming via data analysis in R and various utility tools in Python, SQL, Java (for web scraping, data querying, etc.). I am considering ...
Heisenberg's user avatar
  • 1,456
2 votes
1 answer
153 views

How to interest a researcher in a topic (social science)?

I have created a thesis related to the objective utility and evaluation of art. It is based on many years of personal experience in the arts, as well as many years of study into the philosophy of ...
Chris Sunami's user avatar
  • 1,579
4 votes
2 answers
1k views

How can I apply a Computer Science degree towards a career in a research-related position of another field?

I'm not interested in becoming an academic. Rather, I'm interested in opportunities for a Computer Science (or related) major to work in research, either in industry, but also particularly in ...
Spag Guy's user avatar
  • 141