About This Page
For the Library and Information Science student and others new to research, this page includes glossaries, sampling tools, information for those new to data analysis and writing & style guides.
Also see:
- LARKS' Research Methods page;
- LARKS' links to grant resources, guides and books;
- LARKS' links to present and publish your research.
LIS Terminology
- ODLIS – The Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science is provided by ABC-CLIO.
- Glossary of Library Terms – The glossary is curated by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Sampling
- Sampling is the process of selecting units (e.g., people, organizations) from a population of interest so that by studying the sample we may fairly generalize our results back to the population from which they were chosen. Read more at Social Research Methods' Sampling page
- Sample Size Calculator
- Example of Sample Size calculation for the American Community Survey at the United States Census Bureau
Statistics
- Tools for Teaching – This site has tools for exploring correlation and calculating percentile rankings.
- Institute for Digital Research at UCLA – This site includes resources to help understand and use statistical packages such as SPSS, R, MatLab and more.
- About Data – This site had simple explanations of data analysis for beginners, including probability and statistics.
- Quantitative data analysis - an introduction (.pdf) - From the United States General Accounting Office, the paper aims to illustrate a variety of statistical methods and bridge the gap between specialist and generalist.
Writing & Style Guides
- The Owl at Purdue includes APA and MLA formatting rules and examples.
- APA Style
- MLA Style
- The Chicago Manual of Style Online Citation Quick Guide
- The Economist Numbers Guide: The Essentials of Business Numeracy (.pdf) includes useful tips for writing about, describing and depicting numerical and financial concepts.
Just for Fun
Working With Data
- Data Curation Profile Tools - This resource offers help, support and camaraderie in exploring avenues to learn more about working with research data and the use of the Data Curation Profiles Toolkit. A Data Curation Profile is an outline of the “story” of a data set or collection, describing its origin and lifecycle within a research project.
- Data Management and Publishing tools - From the Massachussetts Institute of Technology Libraries, this resource gives tips on managing/ documenting data, evaluating data needs, and more.
National Data Sources
Interested in describing the community around your research? Here are some national resources to get you started.
- United States Census Bureau
- Bureau of Labor Statistics | BLS API access [What's an API?]
- U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis data
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - National Center for Health Statistics
- The Cultural Policy & the Arts National Data Archive - policy-relevant data on the arts and cultural policy in the United States, with data sets
Other USA data sources from Data.gov
Presentation tools
- PowerPoint [Desktop resource] - the well-known slide show presentation program developed by Microsoft.
- Google Presentation - [Online resource] a web-based presentation software which allows users to upload and share presentations on-the-go, synced to a Google account.
- Slideshare - [Online resource] a web-based presentation software owned by LinkedIn which allows users to upload and share presentations, infographics, documents, videos, PDFs, and webinars.
- Apple Keynote - [Desktop resource] Keynote for Mac is the native iOS presentation application, which allows users to create and edit between Mac and iOS devices. It works with Microsoft PowerPoint as well.
- Prezi [Online + desktop resource] - Prezi allows for animated presentations. The service allows users to present from your browser, desktop, iPad, or iPhone; users can create or edit on the go, then auto-sync across all devices.
Visualization tools
Use your research and create dynamic charts for online presentations.
- Tableau - web-based and desktop-based applications for analytics and visualization.
- Infogr.am - web-based application for non-designers to create infographics and visualizations without the need of programming or design skills.
Visualization Resource
Wong, Dona M. (2006). The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics: The Dos and Don'ts of Presenting Data, Facts, and Figures. New York: W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 2010
For questions about the content on this page - or any suggested additions to these resources - please contact the Office for Research & Statistics.