---
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.

## 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

- [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — design/analysis packages and CAQDAS/QCA tooling
- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — ASR methodological breadth