PSC 344 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Literature Review, Causal Inference, Dependent And Independent Variables
5 Nov 2017
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Document Summary
Academic social science writing is a unique form of non-fiction. More articles follow a similar format, and understanding it aids comprehension. Three methodological approaches: formal modeling, case studies, quantitative analysis. Abstracts: come with many papers, brief summaries of the paper and its argument. Theoretical articles are usually propositional, suggest explanations and ways to understand a causal inference. Assumptions: bases on which projections of behavior are built, sometimes not stated explicitly (but still important to look for/think about) Independent variables: variables that explain why something else changes. Dependent variables: variable changes due to independent variables changing. Can use case studies, or small-n studies (because they usually use between. Data is qualitative or quantitative (descriptive rather than statistical) two to five cases) Normative articles focus on what should happen (opinion-based, backed up by facts) Order of a standard empirical article: context. Often, coding can reflect biases--must be careful not to give a slanted manner of measuring variables.
