research

Lessons From the Past? Or Justifying an Idiosyncratic Research Agenda?

by

I remember reading Michael Tomz's book Reputation and International Cooperation: Sovereign Debt Across Three Centuries for a seminar a couple of years ago, and someone having made a remark about how Tomz was probably just really interested in the time period or the subject matter, but had to frame the research in such a way as to justify its relevance beyond what might be the author's more narrow interests.  Since then I've had a few discussions with some of my advisers on the topic of how we frame our research–essentially how we sell a line of research as relevant to our field.  Overall though, I've found that this is a topic that seems to have stayed out of in-class discussions for the most part.

Read more

Data and Blogging

by

Ah Friday, a great day to do final edits on my and Julie's paper for Midwest – also a good time for a quick blog post with a somewhat misleading title as the two subjects refer to two seperate links. First, via Freakonomics, is a competition for the Fraser Institute to have them collect data.  … Read more

Conference Double Dipping: How Germ Free is Your Paper?

by

Since it had become suggested reading for our first year graduate students in their introduction to methods course, I finally compelled myself to read over the April edition of PS: Political Science and its symposium on duplicate paper presentations at conferences.  That is, whether it is acceptable for an identical paper to be presented at … Read more

Data collection using Web-based Forms

by

Thanks to a comment on an earlier post, Stephen Haptonstahl answered some of my questions and technical misgivings I had about setting up a larger user interface for collecting data via a webpage.  Specifically, he has an article in the Political Methodologist‘s from 2008 (the specific issue can be found here, starts on page 12) … Read more

Over 100 Places that May Fund Your Research

by

Academic Productivity has recently posted a great find from the Online Education Database: 100 places to find funding for your research: Whether you’re researching the habits of marine life, ancient texts or just a new way to market products, you’ll likely need some funding to get your studies underway. The Internet is a great place to start looking … Read more

Manual Data Collection in the age of Computers

by

I am beginning a new data collection project that requires the manual coding of data collected from various sources in print and online.  As I start this project, I am tasked with how to build a master record of all the data I collect in the process.  I have worked on projects that used extensive paper coding forms that were later filed away only to be retrieved when appropriate.  This serves as a safeguard to both checking original coding decision, errors in the database, and any other information the coders found while researching the topic at hand.  Alternatively, other projects had an evolving excel spreadsheet that itself was the master record – duplicate copies served as a safeguard against accidents while the final form only existed when the researchers stopped coding.  Finally, projects that are entirely automated tend to generate their own database that the researchers can then use to extract useful information into a final dataset for examination.

For this project, I decided to make a separate, master database that then will be used to generate data sets as needed.  Any changes will be documented in the master set and stripping out coding variables (last updated, side notes, etc.) that are otherwise irrelevant to people using the data.  Thus, the final versions will be tab delimited for general consumption, produce in Stata, and a R version while the master remains in a different format for official changes.

More after the jump; those interested, there are screenshots and I attempt to elicit ideas for more efficient mechanisms to collect and store data…

Read more

Conferences go digital and explore the World of Warcraft

by

I have actively played video games since before I could actively recall solid memories of my childhood.*  Some of my earliest memories do include an Atari system set up by my father and primitive graphics.  A lifetime of video games has lead to my current past time of World of Warcraft which I have since … Read more

Something to keep an eye out for: Google Data

by

Wired reports that Google plans to release, soon, a framework for hosting, storing, and distributing large or frequently used data.  The Project, Palimpsest, will pay the fees to both ship the data (by sending users a 3TB hard drive to download the data) and for hosting.  This, if applicable for political science scholars, not only … Read more

When Form can Overwhelm Content

by

I am not a visually oriented person or, more appropriately, I am less than stellar at design.  This may not be a surprise to anyone that has seen my attempts to assemble a wardrobe, but this is also true in the sense of organizing information – whether it is in a paper, on a poster, … Read more