I need empirical research.
Answer
Determining if an article uses empirical research can be challenging for someone just starting out with scholarly literature. The first thing I tell students to look for is original research, rather than a review of existing research (for example, an encyclopedia or newspaper article). This means the authors collected and evaluated large sets of data and were able to draw conclusions. Frequently that might mean the authors did a survey, did experiments, or took data from a third party (like the government, health care providers, law enforcement, non-profits) and worked with that. One thing I always look for in the article is a section that explains how they did the research, usually called METHODS or METHODOLOGY, and a RESULTS section. The METHODS section will tell how they collected the data and usually they will talk about some sort of statistical analysis whereas the RESULTS section will explain what conclusions they were able to draw from the review of the data.
PLEASE NOTE:
If you are in SOC - 1113 or a class that requires you to work with a librarian, you will still need to work with a librarian through online chat (not BIBLI), Email-A-Librarian, or in-person.