Fran Shaver and I have put together a number of readings that you might find useful. In many cases you will require Adobe Acrobat on your computer to read and print them.
Professional Development
- Time Management – Some general tips on how to manage your time under deadline pressure.
- Letters of Reference Checklist – A checklist for requesting letters of reference.
- Reading Better – A Powerpoint presentation on how to read better (with related exercises).
- CSA Statement of Professional Ethics – A link to the Statement of Professional Ethics approved by the Canadian Sociology Association.
- Tri-Council Policy Statement – A link to the Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS).
- Survival Strategies for Graduate Research – A Powerpoint presentation on developing research topics, planning your graduate career, and participating in research projects.
Research and Project Design for Students and Researchers
- Tips for developing research topics (Reimer 2006) – Suggestions for identifying and developing topics for papers, theses, or other research products.
- Notes on the Logic of Inquiry (Reimer, 1995) – This is a paper discussing the meaning and use of claims, concepts, propositions, theories, hypotheses, levels of abstraction, and operationalization. It makes use of an article entitled “Jobs for Women – the Canadian Labour Farce” as an illustration of the use of these elements of the logic of inquiry.
- The Labour Farce paper – This is the article used in the Notes on the Logic of Inquiry [Marchak, M. Patricia (1973) “The Canadian Labour Farce: Jobs for Women”. Pp 199-212 in Stephenson, Marylee, Women in Canada, Toronto: New Press.]
- Review/Critique of the Literature – Provides some guides for writing reviews of the literature as well as references pointing to examples in various academic articles.
- Brief ppt presentation on literature reviews – by Matthew Brett.
- Notes on Providing a Critique – These notes give suggestions for preparing an appropriate critique of others’ work.
- Types and Structures of Explanations – Outlines of the basic structure of 8 types of explanations.
- Choosing the Right Method: Narins, Pamela (1995) “Choosing the right administration method for your research” SPSS Keywords, #56, pp 6-7.
- Evaluation of Research Designs – Suggested criteria for evaluating your own or someone else’s research design.
- Checklist for a Research Proposal – Things to consider when developing your research proposal
- Summary Protocol (Long) Form for Research with Human Subjects – A copy of the Concordia University ethics form to be filled out by students who are conducting research with human subjects. Graduate students in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology should use the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Ethics Form. For more details see the Office of Research Website regarding research ethics
- Reimer, Bill (2010) “Rural Research Centres in Canada” Presentation to the CRRF Annual Conference: On the Bright Side, Brandon, MB, Oct 16.
Research and Project Organization for Researchers
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Managing Large Projects
- Reimer, Bill (2014) “Governance and Managing Research Partnerships” Partnership Grants Startup Meeting, SSHRC, Ottawa, ON, October 1.
- Reimer, Bill (2015) “Managing Education and Research Partnerships: Tips from the trenches” Presented at the ACSRC Network Leadership Symposium, Edmonton, Sept. 22-24.
- Markey, Sean, Bill Ashton, Ryan Gibson, Bill Reimer, Philomena de Lima, Elin Gwyn (2017) “From (Stone) Soup to Nuts: Lessons from the creation of an international and intersectoral learning commons” Panel presentation to the CRRF National Conference, Nelson, BC, September 21.
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Facilitating Knowledge Exchange among Researchers, Policy-makers, Practitioners, and Citizens
- Reimer, Bill (2014) “Facilitating Collaboration among Researchers, Policy-makers, and Communities” Presentation to the 2014 Rural Research Day, OMAF Conference Centre, Guelph, ON, April 29.
- Reimer, Bill and Laura Ryser (2007) “Knowledge Mobilization in the New Rural Economy Project: 1997-2007” Saskatoon, SK, May 31, 2007.
- Reimer, Bill (2008) “(In)Visibility for Knowledge Mobilization: The NRE Experience” Invited presentation at the SSHRC Knowledge In Society Workshop, UBC, Vancouver, June 3.
- Reimer, Bill (2014) “Collaboration Challenges: Research, Policy, Community” Québec Lower North Shore-Labrador Straits Regional Development: Towards Regional Collaboration, Blanc Sablon (QC) & L’Anse au Clair (NL), October 14-16.
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Working with Students in Research Teams
- Managing student participation in research projects. This YouTube interview identifies a strategy I use for including students in my research projects–along with some of the benefits of my approach.
- Reimer, Bill (2014) “The Changing Role of TAs: online vs. in-class” Presentation to the eConcordia Teaching Colloquium, March 7.
- Reimer, Bill (2010) “Working In A Research Team” Presentation to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Graduate Seminar, March 17.
Data Collection/Preparation/Analysis
- Examples of Field Notes – Examples of handwritten and typed field notes.
- Data Available from Statistics Canada (Data Liberation Initiative): Video clip of procedure to explore data on the DLI (requires access to Equinox site via an institution with access to the DLI).
- Tips for Constructing Questionnaires – Narins, Pamela (1995) “Guidelines for creating better questionnaires” SPSS Keywords, #58, pp. 8-9.
- Constructing Questionnaires – From Jackson, Winston (1988) Research Methods: Rules for Survey Design and Analysis, Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, pp81-104.
- Writing more Effective Survey Questions: Narins, Pamela (1995) “Write more effective survey questions” SPSS Keywords, #57, pp. 6-7, 16.
- Implications of Content and Structural Analysis – From Jackson, John (1981) “On the implications of content and structural analysis”, Pp 232-249 in Salter, Liora (ed.) Communication Studies in Canada, Toronto: Butterworths (permission granted by LexusNexis Canada Inc.)
- Sampling and Questionnaire Construction (PPT presentation).
- Guide for Questionnaire Construction From Selltiz, Claire, Lawrence Wrightsman, and Stuart Cook (1970) Research Methods in Social Relations, 3rd ed., New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Wiston, pp 547-563.
- Discourse Analysis 1-page summary from Parker, Ian (1992) Discourse Dynamics: Critical Analysis for Social and Individual Psychology, New York: Routledge.
- Discourse Analysis From Parker, Ian (1992) Discourse Dynamics: Critical Analysis for Social and Individual Psychology, New York: Routledge, pp 3-22, 122-127.
- Interviewing Tips (excerpt from the STAR Workbook)
- Tips for Taping (excerpt from the STAR Workbook)
- Tips for Writing Interview Notes (prepared by Fran Shaver)
- Example of a semi-structured interview form (NRE Household survey)
Communication
- Suggested Outlines for Types of Manuscripts – Outlines for 3 different types of research manuscripts: hypothesis-testing, descriptive, and client-oriented.
- Suggested Outline for a Research Paper – Provides a detailed outline for an empirical research paper plus tips on style and the presentation of tabular information.
- Writing Your Research – A Powerpoint presentation on writing for various audiences.
- How to Support an Argument – Outlines the structure of 4 common types of arguments, with examples.
- Writing Better Paragraphs – From Payne, Lucile Vaughan (1969) The Lively Art of Writing, Signet Mentor.
- A Checklist for Revising Papers – Use this when you get to your next-to-final draft.
- Tips For Presentations – Provides some tips for preparing and presenting papers.
- The 10 Minute Presentation – A Powerpoint presentation on making short presentations.
- Creating Posters – Tips for designing, creating, and producing research posters.
- Poster Templates – Powerpoint template examples from Colin Purrington.
Statistics and SPSS
- Statistics Summary – A summary of characteristics and conditions for basic statistics.
- Using SPSS for Windows – A list of common routines for SPSS (Windows version).
- Working with Syntax Files in SPSS – An illustrated guide for basic SPSS commands (by Vicki Beaupre-Odorico)
- Entering data into SPSS – a video clip and list of steps for creating a codebook and entering raw data into SPSS via an excel spreadsheet.
- Selecting codebooks from Concordia databases, computing SPSS results and inserting them into a Word file – a video clip from Soci 213 (Assignment 2)
- Selecting data from Concordia databases and calculating basic statistics – a video clip from Soci 213 (Asssignment 3)
- Index construction and Cronbach’s alpha – From Bohrnstedt, George W. and Daniel Knoke (1988) Statistics for Social Data Analysis, 2nd ed., Ithaca: F.E. Peacock, pp 382-386.
- Weighting Cases in GSS – How to weight cases when using the General Social Surveys.
- Multiple Regression From Nie, Norman, C. Hadlai Hull, Jean Jenkins, Karin Steinbrenner, and Dale Bent (1975) SPSS (2nd edition), New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975, pp 320-342.
- Topics in General Linear Models From Nie, Norman, C. Hadlai Hull, Jean Jenkins, Karin Steinbrenner, and Dale Bent (1975) SPSS (2nd edition), New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975, pp 368-392.
- Factor Analysis From Nie, Norman, C. Hadlai Hull, Jean Jenkins, Karin Steinbrenner, and Dale Bent (1975) SPSS (2nd edition), New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975, pp 468-490.