Finding Statistics  Tags: statistics us ca california sf san_francisco international demographics business crime education health_statistics military science agriculture religion transportation sports census data san_francisco_state_university sfsu sf_state j._paul_leonard  

Successfully finding statistical data that is not in a standard resource requires good inquiry and critical thinking skills. Accurate speculation about how the data would be gathered and who would have gathered it can help determine where it might have been published. For example, research on the smoking habits of college students may have been collected by market researchers (and noted in business sources) or collected by the Student Health Center or a professor (and published in a journal). The following are some things to think about when pursuing hard-to-find data:

• How would this data be gathered? Can it be gathered?
  Think about the real world; e.g., Are the data private or personal? Is it illegal or hard to count? Would it be too expensive to gather?
• Who would gather this data? Are they reliable? Authoritative?
  Basically, who cares? e.g., a government agency? a professor? a market research firm? an opinion pollster?
• Was the data published? Was it widely distributed?
  Data can be found in journal articles, reference books, corporate or agency records, Internet sites, etc. It could be in an office file cabinet and not widely distributed.
• Are there access restrictions?
  Are the data free? Is it only available to individuals in the company or agency?