Sociology Sources

Sociology papers rely on a variety of sources. Factual sources such as demographics, research statistics, newspaper reports, oral histories or other primary sources may help lay the background for your study, as well as providing evidence for your argument. Scholarly sources such as journal articles provide theoretical frameworks within which you can position your own analysis.   

Literature Reviews should:

• Include Scholarly Sources such as academic journal articles and books. 
  You should compare scholarly perspectives on the question that you are raising in your paper, and ideally, to find a gap in scholarly research which you can address.
• Generally not include Factual Sources like sources of statistics, newspaper reports on events, etc. 
  (You will need these sources for your final paper, of course, but they don't belong in an annotated bibliography.)

Research Papers should:

• Include Scholarly Sources such as academic journal articles and books.
  The Literature Review section (if included) consists of an extended analysis of these sources, contrasting the major viewpoints on your issue. If you already wrote an Annotated Bibliography, the Literature Review can be built from the same sources that you already identified there. Ideally, your literature review will show where scholars have already reached consensus on issues related to your thesis, as well as areas where more research should be done. 
• Also include numerous Factual Sources. When doing original research, you should include an overview of the facts that have already been well-established by other sources, as well as a detailed analysis of data from your own original findings.