As a social scientist, you may be asked to provide an informed opinion on topics that are socially relevant. In order to do this, you need to know how to find credible sources of information based on social science research. The best place to look for credible sources is through library databases that house academic peer-reviewed journals.

For this assignment, you will identify a current social issue to explore and you will conduct a search of the literature using the UMUC library databases. You will find and summarize five recent articles related to your topic using academic journals and sources from at least three social science disciplines (including anthropology, criminology, economics, gerontology, political science, psychology, public policy, and sociology). Your articles should be no more than 5 to 7 years old.

The research you conduct for this assignment will be incorporated into your Writing Assignment 3 which is due at the end of the term.

Your assignment should be completed on the worksheet provided and should include the following:

• A detailed statement that identifies a current social issue about which you are interested in learning more. You can find some ideas by searching the Web or by simply listening to the news. Your statement should include an explanation of why the topic interests you.
• A detailed summary of what makes a source of information credible in the social sciences, as well as examples of sources that would not be considered credible. Be sure to include in-text citations that support your statements.
• Five article summaries from at least three different social science disciplines including:
  • Reference in APA format – an excellent source for guidance on APA format and style is http://www.bibme.org/apa
  • Disciplinary perspective (e.g. anthropology, economics, gerontology, psychology, sociology, etc.) – how do you know? (e.g. title of the journal, credentials of the authors, specific theories mentioned, etc.)
  • How do you know this is a credible source?
  • Summary of the article
    • Research questions and/or hypotheses
    • Description of subjects – who did the researchers study?
    • Basic description of the study design – what did the researchers do?
    • Main findings of the study (don’t worry so much about complicated methods, statistics, and results sections. You’ll learn more about this in your upper level courses)
    • Any limitations of the study