Research Resources

General Resources

Library Resource Guide Curated by Harvard Librarians for HSURV 2023! Includes links to data sources and perks/freebies, ways to contact librarians for one-to-one support, and other interesting stuff!

Unabridged On Demand is a library intensive designed to help lay the groundwork for a career in academic research. Adapted from in-person workshops for Harvard graduate students, the On Demand modules are available to all. These self-paced lessons can be taken anytime, anywhere, and offer tips and tools for all stages of your research.

URAF Guide to Working with Faculty: Excellent tips!

Reference/Citation Management

• Harvard Library Zotero Guide Zotero is a free research management software program that enables you to collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share references and create bibliographies. It’s especially aimed at social science and humanities researchers who might be citing nontraditional online sources. EndNote is another reference management option (but it’s not free once you leave Harvard).

Coding/Data Analysis Tutorials

• Harvard Catalyst Introduction to R
• IQSS Workshop Materials (R, and also Python and Stata) (For each, click on the “Static Workshop Notes” link to read the detailed step-by-step guidance.)
• EdX courses on R and Python
• Harvard Library Guide to Nvivo (qualitative data coding and analysis)
• QSR International Nvivo Webinars (free tutorials from the makers of Nvivo)

Data Sources

• Public Opinion Research Archive (iPoll)
• Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research

Project Management/Note-taking

• Asana (project management)
• GitHub (project management for software developers; SEAS has a license)
• Evernote (note-taking, web clipping)
• OneNote (part of the MS Office suite, also good for note-taking and integrating photos, etc.; the web clipper is *not* as good as Evernote’s, though, nor is the tagging/labeling, but the page layout is better!)

Other Miscellaneous Resources

• IQSS Computing Labs
• Research Support (compiled by VPAL, Harvard Library, HUIT)
• Using QALMRI to read or structure empirical research papers (inspired by this 1964(!) article on “strong inference”)

Abstract Writing

• Slides from 2019 Abstract Workshop for BLISS & SHARP with Elissa Jacobs and Donna Mumme
• Abstract Workshop Presentation by Elissa Jacobs (Zoom recording) from 2023
• Catalog of prior HSURV Abstract Books
• For those working on book projects, note that a publisher’s book blurb is similar to an abstract (though a bit more of a sales pitch): for example, here are links to blurbs to a couple of books that had components that were BLISS projects: Carpenter, Enos.

Workshop Materials & Contacts