Research experience and the CV

[amlobo]

Ok, this is going to sound like a really dumb question, but what is considered "research experience?" I was not a sociology major, so I obviously have no sociological research experience. I have written many research papers, but it's not like I collected original data or performed regressions or conducted interviews. My majors were in history and political science, so my "research" was basically me finding articles/books/etc. to support my thesis and writing a paper. Then, in law school and my job, I have performed legal research... which is totally different from regular academic research. It involves researching case law and statutes and supporting my argument... and I do so much of it that it seems ridiculous to mention it.

Is any of this considered "research experience" that I could list on a CV when applying to Sociology Phd programs? I don't want a huge blank, obviously, but am unclear on what qualifies as research experience. Would it be the "papers" I've written for courses? I did write a law journal article that was published - is that research experience... or just a publication? I am sure I am making this much more confusing than it needs to be, but any insight is appreciated. Thanks!

[NightCartographer]

If I were you, I would list all of the above as research experience and really sell it hard.

[Darth.Vegan]

A topic paper does not qualify as research experience. The legal stuff you can sell, but the other stuff does not count unless it was using comparative historical methodology or something like that.

[amlobo]

I understand that the "topic" papers I wrote for most of my classes do not qualify... such as where I had to respond to a prompt or was limited to using the course materials. My majors did, however, require a research seminar for which you submitted a research proposal, chose your own topic, found your own sources, and wrote a decent-sized paper (~25 pages). It was a "mini-thesis" of sorts. I'm assuming that those would count? For instance... for History, I wrote about the socio-political utility and effect of a particular writer's work in a certain city in Renaissance Europe. For PoliSci, I constructed an educational policy and predicted and examined the systemic effects. So, my work was considered research within those disciplines... but I just didn't know how it would translate.

I think I will just list those papers with my majors as you would a thesis, but label them differently. It's not the end of the world to have a very short research experience section. Hopefully my other sections will compensate.

Edited September 1, 2012 by amlobo

[Darth.Vegan]

It sounds like you did some research there. Sure it's not sociological research, although comparative-historical methodology is pretty common!