| name | asr-research-design |
| description | Use when defending the research design of an American Sociological Review (ASR) manuscript — causal/observational inference for quantitative and demographic work, case selection and comparison for comparative-historical work, site and informant logic for ethnography, and network/computational designs. ASR judges each tradition on its own terms. Strengthens the design; it does not write code. |
Research Design (asr-research-design)
ASR welcomes many methods but is exacting about each. The design must credibly link the argument
(asr-theory-building) to evidence and rule out the leading alternative. Pick the section matching
your method.
When to trigger
- Specifying identification, case selection, sampling, or site/informant logic
- A reviewer questioned causal claims, generalization, selection, or a confound
- Justifying why your design adjudicates the rival account from
asr-literature-positioning
Quantitative / demographic
- Be honest about what the design identifies. Much of sociology is observational; distinguish
description, association, and causation. If causal, state the assumptions (ignorability, parallel
trends, exclusion) and defend them.
- Designs: panel/fixed-effects, DID/event study (modern staggered estimators, not naive TWFE),
IV, RDD, matching/weighting with balance and sensitivity; decomposition for inequality; event
history for timing; age-period-cohort for demographic change.
- Inference & sampling: respect complex survey design (weights, clustering, strata); cluster at
the right level; report uncertainty.
- Sensitivity: how strong must an unobserved confounder be to overturn the result?
Comparative-historical
- Case selection by design logic (most/least-likely, paired comparison, deviant) — say what each
case is a case of; justify the comparison and the counterfactual.
- Evidence: archives, secondary histories, administrative records; document provenance.
- Specify the causal form (necessary/sufficient conditions, conjuncture, path dependence; QCA where
apt) and what evidence would have disconfirmed the argument.
Ethnographic / interview
- Site and informant selection justified theoretically, not by access alone; state positionality
and access conditions.
- Plan how depth, saturation, and negative cases are handled; how claims map to observed evidence.
- Ethics/IRB, consent, and confidentiality planned from the start (see
asr-data-and-transparency).
Network / computational
- Define boundary specification, missing-ties, and the generative process (e.g., ERGM/SAOM logic).
- For computational text/ML: validate against human-labeled samples; report stability.
The adjudication test (ASR-specific)
For the single strongest rival explanation: "If the rival were true rather than my argument, the
evidence would look like ___; instead it looks like ___." If you cannot write it, the design does not
yet identify the contribution.
What ASR referees demand of each design
ASR judges every tradition rigorously on its own logic — the unifying ASA standard is a design that
connects argument to evidence and rules out the leading rival.
| Design | Referee's first demand | Satisfying move |
|---|
| Quant / demographic | "What does this identify?" | description vs. causation; defend the assumption + sensitivity |
| Comparative-historical | "Why these cases?" | design-driven selection; say what each is a case of |
| Ethnographic | "Why this site and informants?" | theoretical sampling, positionality, negative cases |
| Network / computational | "Principled process?" | boundary spec, missing-tie handling, label validation |
Worked micro-example (illustrative)
A comparative-historical study argues that labor-incorporation timing shaped later union strength
across four countries.
Case logic: paired comparison (early vs. late incorporators), matched on industrialization level
Causal form: path dependence — early settlement locks in conditions C1–C2
Disconfirming evidence sought: a case with early timing but weak unions → would break the claim
Adjudication sentence: "If prior militancy drove this, the deviant case shows strong unions despite
late timing; instead it shows weak unions, as the timing argument predicts."
The selection is design-driven, the rival is named, and the design specifies what evidence would have
falsified the argument.
Referee pushback → ASR-specific fix
- "Association dressed as causation." → Restate what the design identifies and add a sensitivity
bound or placebo; drop causal verbs you cannot defend.
- "Your cases look hand-picked." → Show the selection rule and what each case represents at the
population level.
Calibration anchors
- Method-appropriate rigor, one disciplinary bar. ASR won't hold ethnography to a regression
standard or vice versa — but every design must defeat its strongest rival.
- The adjudication sentence is the test. If you can't write "if the rival were true the evidence
would look like ___," the design does not yet earn the contribution.
- Identification honesty travels. Stating plainly what observational data can and cannot establish
reads as strength to a cross-method panel.
Execution bridge (StatsPAI / Stata MCP)
Estimate and audit the design, don't only describe it. Full map:
execution-with-mcp. ASR is general sociology where observational designs dominate; foreground identification (DiD/IV/RDD), decomposition, and clustered inference.
detect_design → recommend → fit with as_handle=true → audit_result.- Observational causal claims: staggered DiD (
callaway_santanna / sun_abraham +
bacon_decomposition + honest_did_from_result); IV (effective_f_test +
anderson_rubin_ci); RDD (rdrobust + mccrary_test).
- Experiments: randomization-based inference,
romano_wolf for many-outcome
family-wise control, and mediate for mediation (not naive controlling-away).
- Sensitivity:
oster_delta / sensemakr for observational claims.
Report the effect size in interpretable units; route the full battery to the
appendix/supplement. A run end-to-end (synthetic data, real returns) is in the
JF execution walkthrough.
Anti-patterns
- "Causal" language on a purely observational/associational design
- Naive TWFE on staggered timing; ignoring survey weights/clustering
- Convenience case or site selection dressed up as theory-driven
- Ethnographic claims with no account of negative cases or saturation
- A design that cannot distinguish your mechanism from the leading alternative
Output format
【Method】quant/demographic / comparative-historical / ethnographic / network-computational
【What it identifies】description / association / causation
【Key assumption(s) or selection logic】and how defended
【Rival ruled out】the adjudication sentence
【Robustness / negative cases / sensitivity】planned
【Next】asr-data-analysis
Supplementary resources
