2022 Annual Conference
Workshops in San Antonio, Texas
January 12-15, 2022
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In collaboration with the Southern Political Science Association (SPSA) we offered several professional development workshops at the SPSA's 2022 Annual Conference in San Antonio.
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Details for each workshop can be found below:
An Introduction to Big Data Analysis for the Social Sciences
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
9am-noon and 1:30pm-4:30pm
This introductory workshop introduces the basics of statistical analysis with big data. Big data has different definitions in various fields and businesses. An appropriate definition is that it is data that challenges one’s computational resources. We will spend time looking at the tools that allow social scientists to perform statistical tasks with such challenging data including data handling in R.
Experiments in the
Social Sciences
Thursday, January 13, 2022
9am-noon and 1:30pm-4:30pm
In this workshop, we will discuss the logic of experimentation, its strengths and weaknesses compared to other methodologies, and the ways in which experimentation has been — and could be — used to investigate political, social, and economic phenomena. Emphasis will be placed on field experiments, randomized trials conducted in real-world settings. Examples will be drawn from a broad array of disciplines.
Revising and Submitting
for Publication
Saturday, January 15, 2022
1:30pm-4:30pm
For many of us drafting a manuscript can be one of the most difficult steps in the research process. And sometimes our best efforts to revise and resubmit are not successful. Why is that? This workshop will begin an overview of the main reasons that manuscripts are rejected and offer tips for addressing those shortcomings and producing a publishable paper for a specific audience. Participants will apply the principles of academic storytelling to address the goals of the author-researcher and the demands of the editor/reviewer and the reading audience. That means identifying the key message and how to shape that message for the intended audience in a particular outlet – be it a journal, news article, op-ed, press release, and other non-text-based outlet. Participants will dig into important but sometimes overlooked elements of a manuscript such as drafting a good title, choosing appropriate keywords and writing a strong abstract. Software tools and strategies for editing, proofreading and polishing a final draft will also be discussed.
Future SPSA workshops...
As part of our ongoing collaboration, KiND will continue to offer workshops as part of the SPSA's annual events.
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See details for some of these upcoming workshops below and stay tuned for more to come!
Discourse Analysis
Date TBA
This workshop is aimed at participants who work (or intend to work) with discourse analytic methods and would like to have an opportunity to discuss their work, and in particular their methodological issues. It will be structured around the interrogations of the participants who will be invited to send along some preliminary information (see below) and to present their projects. Typical questions that will likely be on the agenda include:
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the specificity and uses of a discourse analytic lens (as opposed to other approaches to data analysis) and its relations with other approaches (such as discursive institutionalism or textual analysis).
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turning discourse analytic ideas into methodological tools (the “how to” of DA)
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the methodological process underlying discourse analysis (in particular the process of building up interpretations);
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interpretive validity
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the usefulness (or not) of software for discourse analytic endeavors
Getting out of the Ivory Tower and Changing Policy: How to improve your public affairs skills
Date TBA
More than ever, academics are being told that “knowledge translation” is an important component of their research agenda. However, this shouldn’t be limited to merely publishing in academic journals or going to conferences. Instead, getting your research into the mainstream using public affairs can not only enhance your scholarship, it can change the direction of public policy. This workshop provides a number of important ways academics can work with journalists, policy experts, government and community experts to form relationships that can improve the dynamic between the academic and the public, creating a knowledge network that extends beyond the ivory tower. Included will be the opportunity to learn how to work with media, writing opinion pieces and policy briefing notes. There will be opportunities for in-class feedback – all with the aim to increase your confidence in talking about your expertise with those holding the microphone.
Working with Concepts
Date TBA
Concepts are foundational to the social-science enterprise. This workshop introduces you to new ways to think about and work with them derived from interpretivist methodology. In contrast to the more widely-known positivist approach of concept “formation”or “reconstruction” (the formulation of a technical, neutral vocabulary for measuring, comparing, and generalizing), what you will learn in this workshop is an approach that I call “elucidation.”
Elucidation includes both an investigation into the language of daily life and a reflexive examination of social-science technical language. It is intended to illuminate both the world views of the people that social scientists wish to understand and the ways in which social scientists’ embeddedness in particular languages, historical eras, and power structures shapes the concepts with which they do their work.