Important Links

Links to professional associations, style guides and government sites

Professional Associations and Organizations

Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) is the International Sociology Honorary Society - alpha-kappa-delta.org/

American Sociological Association (ASA) - asanet.org

Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology (AAC) - http://www.aacsnet.org/wp/

Association for Qualitative Research (AQR) - http://www.latrobe.edu.au/aqr/

Association for Humanist Socioloigy (AHS) - humanistsoc.org

Association for Research on Nonprofit and Voluntary Associations (ARNOVA) - arnova.org

Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR) - sociologyofreligion.com

Association of Black Sociologists (ABS) - blacksociologists.org

Eastern Sociological Society (ESS) - essnet.org

International Rural Sociology Association (IRSA) - http://www.irsa-world.org/

International Sociological Association (ISA) - http://www.ucm.es/info/isa/

International Visual Sociology Association (IVSA) - visualsociology.org

Law and Society Association (LSA) - lawandsociety.org

National Association for Ethnic Studies (NAES) - ethnicstudies.org

New England Sociological Association (NESA) -http://web.bryant.edu/~nesa/

Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) - http://www.sssrweb.org/

Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) - sssp1.org

Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction ( SSSI) - http://www.soci.niu.edu/~sssi/

Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) - http://newmedia.colorado.edu/~socwomen/

SocioSite lists a number of sociological associations worldwide. It is quite informative and one of the sites that it is highly recommended if you are looking for a particular type of organization.

Style Guide 

A shortcut version of the ASA Style Guide can be found at http://www.asanet.org/Quick%20Style%20Guide.pdf

Research-related Websites

Students interested in looking at survey information should visit the General Social Survey site: http://webapp.icpsr.umich.edu/GSS/

U.S. Census Bureau:
http://www.census.gov/

Additionally, another very good cite is the U.S. Census Bureau's website. That site includes valuable infomation on the U.S. population. This site is really helpful for students who are doing research on variables such as gender, race, sex, income, etc. Visit: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab for more information. Downloadable in Microsoft Office Excel and transferable into SPSS.  

Information Services UNESCO:
http://www.unesco.org/shs/shsdc/journals/shsjournals.html

Social and Human Sciences Online Periodicals (full text). Free access to specialized articles from around 700 periodicals in social and human sciences.

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) of the University of Michigan:
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/org/

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), established in 1962, is an integral part of the infrastructure of social science research. ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction, and offers training in quantitative methods to facilitate effective data use. To ensure that data resources are available to future generations of scholars, ICPSR preserves data, migrating them to new storage media as changes in technology warrant. In addition, ICPSR provides user support to assist researchers in identifying relevant data for analysis and in conducting their research projects.

NORC
http://www.norc.org/ 

A national organization for research at the University of Chicago, with offices on the University's campus, in Chicago's downtown Loop, and in Washington DC, as well as a nationwide field staff. NORC's clients include government agencies, educational institutions, foundations, other nonprofit organizations, and private corporations. Although its national studies are its best known, NORC's projects--which include complex survey and other data collection strategies as well as sophisticated empirical analyses--range across local, regional, and international perspectives as well. NORC's project work is done in an interdisciplinary framework, with strong staff cooperation across substantive areas.

Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)
http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), begun in 1968, is a longitudinal
study of a representative sample of U.S. individuals (men, women, and
children) and the family units in which they reside. It emphasizes the
dynamic aspects of economic and demographic behavior, but its content is
broad, including sociological and psychological measures. As a consequence
of low attrition rates and the success in following young adults as they
form their own families and recontact efforts (of those declining an
interview in prior years), the sample size has grown from 4,800 families in
1968 to more than 7,000 families in 2001. At the conclusion of 2003 data
collection, the PSID will have collected information about more than 65,000
individuals spanning as much as 36 years of their lives. The study is
conducted at the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research,
University of Michigan and has been made possible through the generous
Sponsorship of government agencies, foundations, and other organizations
over the years.  The study contains data on the following: Income sources
and amounts; Poverty status; Public assistance in the form of food or
housing; other financial matters (e.g., taxes, inter-household transfers);
Family structure and demographic measures (e.g., marital events; birth and
adoptions; children forming households); Labor market work (e.g., employment
status, work/unemployment/vacation/sick time; occupation, industry; work
experience); Housework time; Housing (e.g., own/rent, house value/rent
payment, size); Geographic mobility (e.g., when and why moved; where Head
grew up; all states Head has lived in); Socio-economic background (e.g.,
education, ethnicity, religion, military service; parents' education,
occupation, poverty status); Health (e.g., general health status;
disability; 30-day emotional distress)

Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS):
http://nces.ed.gov/ecls/

The ECLS program has been designed to include two overlapping cohorts: a
Birth Cohort and a Kindergarten Cohort. The birth cohort follows a sample of
children from birth through kindergarten entry. The kindergarten cohort
follows a sample of children from kindergarten through the eighth grade.
The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) Program provides national data
on children's status at birth and at various points thereafter; children's
transitions to nonparental care, early education programs, and school; and
children's experiences and growth through the eighth grade. ECLS also
provides data to test hypotheses about the contributions of a wide range of
family, school, community and individual variables on children's
development, early learning, and performance in school.

Wisconsin Longitudinal Study:
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/wlsresearch/

The Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) is a long-term study of a
random sample of 10,317 men and women who graduated from Wisconsin high
schools in 1957. The WLS provides an opportunity to study the life
course, intergenerational transfers and relationships, family
functioning, physical and mental health and well-being, and morbidity
and mortality from late adolescence through middle age. WLS data also
cover social background, youthful aspirations, schooling, military
service, labor market experiences, family characteristics and events,
social participation, psychological characteristics, and retirement.

National Archive of Criminal Justice Data:
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/

The mission of the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) is
to facilitate research in criminal justice and criminology, through the
preservation, enhancement, and sharing of computerized data resources;
through the production of original research based on archived data; and
through specialized training workshops in quantitative analysis of
crime and justice data.

Assocation of Religious Data Archives:
http://www.TheARDA.com

The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data
on American and international religion using online features for
generating national profiles, maps, church membership overviews,
denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other summary
reports. Over 350 data files are available for online preview and most
can be downloaded for additional research.

State of Connecticut:
http://www.ct.gov/ecd/cwp/view.asp?a=1106&Q=250610&ecdNav =|

Incomes, wealth, and taxes:    http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/250.html

Department of Justice:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/

The Pew Research Center:

A nonpartisan "fact tank" providing information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It is made up of seven projects. PewResearch.org is a portal to material produced by seven projects. It also has an archive of past reports. You can find a list of all of its projects which include:

* Spotlight - a new report or analysis of special interest
* Recent Findings and Releases - more studies, transcripts and analyses from the Center and its projects, as well as an archive of items featured on the site
* Databank - includes the Daily Number, typically drawn from Pew studies; the Weekly News Coverage Index presented by the Project for Excellence in Journalism; Key Trends Snapshot, featuring frequently referenced Pew data; and Where Do You Fit, an interactive feature that allows users to compare themselves with national samples
* Pew Research Center Projects: Latest Headlines - Links to and featured reports on the websites of the seven projects that make up the Center
Topic Index
* Demography - studies related to population trends
* Domestic Policy - studies and backgrounders on domestic policy such as education and health care
* Economics - studies related to labor, personal finance, consumer behavior and attitudes toward the economy
* Energy and Environment - studies on energy and the environment
* Foreign Policy/Global - studies related to international public opinion and U.S. public opinion on national security and other foreign policy issues
* Immigration - analysis of trends in immigration and their impact
* Internet and Technology - studies of the social impact of the internet and other technology trends
* Legal - studies and backgrounders on legal cases and issues before the Supreme Court and lower courts
* News Media - trends in news coverage, news interest and the state of the industry, plus attitudes toward the press
* Politics and Elections - news articles, opinion polls, turnout analysis and more related to national and state politics
* Public Opinion - surveys of publics in the U.S and other countries
* Religion - surveys, analyses and event transcripts related to religion and public affairs
* Research Methodology - studies examining methodological issues in polling
* Social Trends - surveys examining the everyday lives of Americans, at work, at play, in their communities and in their families
* State Government - studies and news articles examining state policy trends

Go directly to the Pew website for hyperlinks to these different sites.

Although many qualitative sociologists compile their own surveys, interviews, historical documenets, etc., there are qualitative data sites that one may wish to peruse if one is unable to engage in primary research data collection:

Henry A. Murray Research Archive at the Harvard-MIT Data Center (formerly Radcliffe) http://www.murray.harvard.edu/mra/index.jsp
Henry A. Murray Research Archive collects social science data for use in the study of human development in the context of social change. The Archive provides access to both quantitative data and qualitative data (case histories, open-ended interviews, and audio- and video-tapes).

Oral History Association: http://omega.dickinson.edu/organizations/oha/
"The Oral History Association, established in 1966, seeks to bring together all persons interested in oral history as a way of collecting human memories."  This association has a great list of oral history data collection sources.  Click on their "Centers & Collections" tab. 

Oral History Society: http://www.oralhistory.org.uk/

Alliance for American Quilts: http://www.centerforthequilt.org/index.php

Rutgers University Oral History Archives of World War II:  http://fas-history.rutgers.edu/oralhistory/orlhom.htm