










































Exploring Journal Use in Graduate Research in the Sociology of Religion


44  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

Exploring Journal Use in Graduate 
Research in the Sociology of 
Religion
Informing Collections, Instruction, and Reference
Stephen Woods, Social Science Library and Research Informatics and  
Publishing, The Pennsylvania State University

ABSTRACT Analyzing citations in doctoral dissertations provides important 
insight for the library subject specialist into research patterns in their discipline. 
One of those patterns, journal usage, is an important signpost for understand-
ing the scholarly scope and shifting trends within a discipline. This study ex-
plores journal use patterns in graduate research in the sociology of religion. 
Using journal clusters, the study examines journal use from 64 dissertations 
from a population of 516 dissertations in sociology awarded from 2016-2020 
from 16 institutions in the Big Ten Academic Alliance. This study provides li-
brarians with an initial framework around the importance of studying journal 
use. A description of a clustering method of journal use to identify research 
of religion in sociology dissertations is followed by an introduction of an em-
pirical method for exploring the nuances of journal use based on citation and 
dissertation counts. This analytical method is explored further by demonstrat-
ing three approaches: identifying thematic journal clusters, exploring journal 
cluster strength, and exploring institutional comparisons. Finally, the study 
briefly explores how the findings can inform library collection development, 
instruction, and reference.

INTRODUCTION: WHY STUDY JOURNAL USE?

It is essential for libraries to understand unique journal usage within 
the local context of their institution’s programs and departments. Ex-
ploring journals used by graduate students in their dissertations offers a 
deeper understanding of the nuances within a discipline offering a com-
plementary approach to curriculum evaluation. The use of bibliomet-
rics to explore journal use within the disciplines has a long and storied 
past (Hoffmann and Doucette 2012; Hérubel 1994).Consequently, a brief 
explanation of why the study of journal use is important is in order.



PAPERS  45

Most studies focus on creating a core list of journals within a dis-
cipline to inform collection development decisions. I suggest that the 
study of journal use has a much richer untapped value for growth in 
librarianship. First, journal use shapes our social understanding of 
the research ethos. Simply put, each journal title represents a schol-
arly community and ethos that is attempting to: shape emerging 
research paradigms, provide long-term research stability around a 
purpose and focus, and provide some form of authority for regula-
tion and control of the authenticity of the research.        

Second, studying journal use offers librarians an opportunity to 
expand our understanding of the shifting combination of themes and 
emerging areas of research. Each journal represents nuanced sub-
jects and themes inadequately described in library catalog records 
or popular databases like Ulrich’s. Library research in journal use 
must expand beyond simply identifying a core set of journals in a 
single discipline. These core lists need to be examined to consider 
research questions that help us apply meaningful clusters of journal 
themes such as research methodology, subject clusters, or journals 
with applied and/or theoretical foci. In sum, we need better taxono-
mies. This is essential if we are to have a better understanding of 
journal use within the social sciences.

Finally, the study of journal use can increase our understanding 
of the interconnectivity of journals, programs, and institutions. So-
cial science research is typically interdisciplinary, a point reaffirmed 
by the 1,775 journal titles from multiple disciplines identified in our 
study. Consequently, traditional bibliometrics and journal use by 
graduate students will differ in local programs, disciplines, and in-
stitutions. However, further study of matching pairs of journals or 
comparisons of disciplinary and institutional journal use lists may 
come closer to identifying core journals. Furthermore, journal use 
differences can assist librarians in understanding unique focuses.      

FINDING A UNIVERSE: RELIGION IN SOCIOLOGY 

Our first challenge is to identify dissertations with a focus on religion 
within 517 dissertations in sociology from the Big Ten Academic Al-
liance (BTAA) from 2016–2020. One approach could be to simply ex-
amine the keywords provided by the authors or read the abstracts 
and identify religious-themed dissertations. However, this study 
takes a different approach focusing on dissertations that cite three 
important journals in the sociology of religion.   



46  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

Sociology of Religion Journals
Possamai and Blasi identify The Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion 
(JSSR) and the Review of Religious Research (RRR) along with the journal 
Sociology of Religion (SR) as important contemporary sociology commu-
nities of academic scholarship (2020b). Each journal has a unique and 
intriguing history that has shaped the focus of scholarship from church 
leaders trying to understand cultural shifts from rural to urban areas, 
Catholic sociologists discussing ways to teach sociology, and interdisci-
plinary social and behavioral scholars creating forums for scholarship 
focusing on the sociology of religion (Possamai and Blasi 2020b; 2020a). 

Based on Possamai and Blasi’s (2020b) observation, 64 disser-
tations were identified that cited at least one of these three jour-
nals (see table 1). Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University 
of Chicago, Minnesota, and Indiana had between 8-6 dissertations 
represented in the sample. There were five dissertations each from 
Northwestern, Ohio State, and the University of Nebraska: four dis-
sertations from the University of Illinois Chicago, Purdue Univer-
sity, the University of Maryland, College Park, and the University of 
Michigan. Rutgers University, the University of Illinois at Champaign 
Urbana, the University of Wisconsin, and Michigan State University 
all contributed one dissertation to the sample. 

INSTITUTION # DISSERTATIONS SOCIOLOGY 
OF RELIGION CLUSTER # SOCIOLOGY DISSERTATIONS

Indiana University 6 43

Michigan State University 1 31

Northwestern University 5 47

Ohio State University 5 33

Pennsylvania State University 8 41

Purdue University 4 16

Rutgers, The State University of New 
Jersey — New Brunswick 2 15

University of Chicago 7 57

University of Illinois at Chicago 4 29

University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign 2 14

University of Iowa 0 9

University of Maryland, College Park 4 30

University of Michigan 4 48

University of Minnesota 6 27



PAPERS  47

INSTITUTION # DISSERTATIONS SOCIOLOGY 
OF RELIGION CLUSTER # SOCIOLOGY DISSERTATIONS

University of Nebraska — Lincoln 5 21

University of Wisconsin — Madison 1 55

Total 64 516

TABLE 1. ICD-11 burnout terminology and corresponding synonyms 
from the Maslach Burnout Inventory.

Collecting & Coding the Data [Citation & Journal Title Counts (SR, JSSR, 
RRR)]
A spreadsheet was created for each dissertation that includes: the 
title, author, graduate program, core areas, date of defense, disserta-
tion advisor, committee members, keywords, abstract, and ETD_ID. 
The ETD_ID serves as the key variable between spreadsheets. 

A second spreadsheet was created from the citations in the disserta-
tions. This was done by deriving Word documents from the PDFs so that 
their bibliographies could be copied into a text file without unneces-
sary coding. The text files were coded to identify the parts of a citation 
so that they could be exported into the spreadsheet for further analy-
sis and coding. Dissertations that included multiple bibliographies or 
used footnotes were copied into a single text file and pulled into Ex-
cel to remove duplicate citations. The second spreadsheet contained 
14,551 records that were identified and coded: journal, book or other.  

A third spreadsheet was created from 8,126 journal citations (see 
table 2). Each citation was coded to include ETD_ID, author, year, ar-
ticle title, journal, ISSN, DOI/URL. The ISSN was included to control 
any journal title variation used by the researcher. The DOI/URL were 
left blank if the journal citation did not include them. NA was used 
for journal citations where the ISSN could not be identified.

CITATION TYPES COUNTS PERCENTAGE

Journal 8,126 55.84

Monograph 4,778 32.83

Other 1,647 11.33

Total 14,551 100
   

Journal Titles 1,775  

TABLE 2. Citation and journal title counts (SR, JSSR, RRR)



48  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

In sum, the study identified a list of 1,775 unique journal titles. 
The challenge is how to make sense of this list of titles.  

OUTLINING AN EMPIRICAL METHOD 

Journals were ranked using three different methods. Cit Rank identi-
fies and ranks the journal titles based on citation counts. The second 
method, Diss Rank, identifies and ranks the journal titles based on the 
number of dissertations cited by a particular journal. The third meth-
od, CD Rank, takes the average rank score of Cit Rank and Diss Rank. 

The bar chart shows the top 17 ranked journal titles based on CD 
Rank (see chart 1). If you look at the spread of Sociological Quarterly, 
you will notice that the title has a higher Dissertation rank (spread) 
than Citation Rank. This means that although there are fewer citation 
counts than other journals there is a broader use of the journal in set 
of dissertations. In contrast, the Journal of Marriage and the Family 
has a higher citation count but is concentrated in few dissertations. 
CD rank attempts to normalize or weight the differences. In sum, the 
trendline of the CD Rank shows the variations of ranking corrections 
occurring by taking the average of Diss Rank and Cit Rank. 

CHART 1. CIT Rank

Internal consistency based on correlations using Kendall’s tau-b 
and Spearman’s rho between all three of the ranked lists are high. 



PAPERS  49

(See table 3 and table 4.) Kendall’s tau-b is based on the positive and 
negative relationship of the pairs and Spearman’s rho provides a 
popular and helpful analysis to determine if a congruency between 
the two ranks (Gibbons 1993).

CD RANK DISS RANK CIT RANK

CD Rank 1 0.888 0.955

DISS Rank 0.888 1 0.835

CIT Rank 0.955 0.835 1

TABLE 3. Internal consistency Kendall’s tau-b 

CD RANK DISS RANK CIT RANK

CD Rank 1 0.927 0.992

DISS Rank 0.927 1 0.878

CIT Rank 0.992 0.878 1

TABLE 4. Internal consistency Spearman’s rho 

There are numerous approaches to analyze our results. This study 
will briefly explore three approaches followed by a discussion about 
how these approaches can help inform our librarianship. The full 
data sets are available for download so that you can explore further 
these three approaches (Woods 2023). 

Approach One: Identify Journal Clusters
Our first approach is to simply identify thematic clusters. Table 5 
provides a list of the first eleven journal titles based on CD Rank List. 
From this list, there are four clusters of journals. 

JOURNAL TITLE CIT RANK DISS RANK CD RANK CLUSTERS

American Sociological 
Review 1 1 1 Sociology

American Journal of 
Sociology 3 4 2 Sociology

Annual Review of 
Sociology 5 2 2 Sociology

Journal for the Scientific 
Study of Religion 2 5 2 Religion

Social Forces 4 3 2 Sociology

Sociology of Religion 8 6 6 Religion



50  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

JOURNAL TITLE CIT RANK DISS RANK CD RANK CLUSTERS

Social Science Research 12 7 7 Social Science Re-
search

Social Science and 
Medicine 9 11 8 Medicine & Health

Social Problems 13 8 9 Sociology

Journal of Health and 
Social Behavior 7 16 10 Medicine & Health

Review of Religious 
Research 14 11 11 Religion

TABLE 5. CD Rank list of the first eleven journal titles from dissertations 
citing JSSR, RRR, and SR 

The first cluster includes the Journal for the Scientific Study of Reli-
gion, Sociology of Religion, and the Review of Religious Research. This 
comes as no surprise since these journals represent the “sociology 
of religion” cluster used to create our analysis. In sum, this method 
explores the relationship of all the other journal clusters identified 
with these three core journal titles. 

Our second cluster includes the American Sociological Review, 
American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, and So-
cial Forces considered by the academy as four important generalist 
journals in sociology (Woods 2024). Past studies done by researchers 
exploring journal prestige in sociology consistently identify these 
four journals as core to the discipline. That said, this study focuses 
on journal clustering rather than “prestige.” Added to this list is the 
journal Social Problems, the official publication of the Society for the 
Study of Social Problems.

A third cluster focuses on health and medicine represented by 
the Journal of Health and Social Behavior and Social Science & Medi-
cine. The study will demonstrate how to explore this cluster further 
in our next approach. 

Finally, our fourth journal cluster is social science research meth-
odology represented by Social Science Research, a journal illustrat-
ing the use of quantitative methods to empirically test social science 
theory (“Social Science Research,” n.d.). Thus, creating a methods 
journal cluster that would also include the journal Qualitative Soci-
ology further down on our CD Ranked list.

In sum, from the examination of our short of list of eleven titles 
the study shows a strong clustered connection between our three 
sociology of religion journals and five journals in sociology, two jour-



PAPERS  51

nals in health and medicine, and one focusing on research methodol-
ogy. Other clusters can also be identified upon further examination 
of the complete CD Rank List such as: psychology, political science, 
life course, gender, ethnic studies (Woods 2023).    

Approach Two: Cluster Strength (digging deeper)
Our second approach is to explore journals that cluster with the 
Journal of Health and Behavior (JHB) and Social Science & Medicine 
(SSM). This is accomplished by creating another CD Rank list from 
the 29 dissertations that cite those two journals from our original 
universe of 64 dissertations. The reason for creating a new CD Rank 
is to measure cluster strength of other journals with these two jour-
nals. In sum, the higher the CD Rank the greater tendency for these 
journals to cluster in use.   

As expected, our new data set has fewer journal citation counts 
(4,776) than our original count of 8,126 (see table 6). The is a higher 
percentage of journal cited in these 29 dissertations (68.77%) com-
pared to (55.84%) from our original universe of 64 dissertations. 
There are also 1,160 unique journal titles from these dissertations, 
compared to the 1,775 from our original universe.

CITATION TYPES COUNTS PERCENTAGE

Journal 4,776 68.77

Monograph 1,659 23.89

Other 510 7.34

Total 6,945 100

TABLE 6. Citation Counts from dissertations citing the Journal of Health 
and Social Behavior and Social Science & Medicine 

Generating a new CD Rank list from this data set identifies six 
health and medicine related journals from the 34 highest CD Rank 
journals (see table 7). These include our two base journals in our da-
taset SSM and JHS, as well as the American Journal of Public Health, 
Sociology of Health and Wellness, the New England Journal of Medi-
cine, and JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association). This 
approach provides a way to explore interdisciplinary journal use 
with finer granularity as well measure cluster strength for specific 
journals with other journals used by graduate students. Likewise, 
other clusters and journals can also be identified upon further exami-
nation of the complete CD Rank List for JHB and SSM (Woods 2023).



52  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

JOURNAL TITLE CIT_RANK DISS_RANK CD_RANK

American Sociological Review 1 1 1

Social Science And Medicine 5 2 2

Journal Of Health And Social Behavior 2 6 3

Journal For The Scientific Study Of Religion 4 5 4

Social Forces 7 2 4

Annual Review Of Sociology 8 2 6

American Journal Of Sociology 6 7 7

Journal Of Marriage And Family 3 11 8

Social Science Research 9 8 9

Sociology Of Religion 11 9 10

Demography 13 11 11

American Journal Of Public Health 17 11 12

Gender And Society 9 20 13

Journal Of Personality And Social 
Psychology 19 11 14

American Psychologist 20 11 15

Sociological Quarterly 22 9 15

Review Of Religious Research 13 21 17

Journal Of Gerontology Series B 
Psychological Sciences And Social Sciences 13 23 18

Social Problems 18 18 18

Social Psychology Quarterly 26 11 20

Gerontologist 22 23 21

Psychological Bulletin 28 18 22

Sociological Forum 35 11 22

Journal Of Family Issues 13 35 24

Child Development 26 23 25

Ethnic And Racial Studies 20 35 26

Social Indicators Research 24 35 27

Sociology Of Health And Illness 25 35 28

New England Journal Of Medicine 38 23 29

Jama: The Journal Of The American 
Medical Association 31 35 30

Sociological Theory 35 35 31

Social Science Quarterly 42 29 32

Journal Of Adolescent Health 38 35 33

TABLE 7. CD Rank list of the first 34 journal titles from dissertations citing JHB and SSM 



PAPERS  53

Approach Three: Comparing Groups
I have discussed elsewhere and provided a more comprehensive 
explanation of using CD Rank and correlation to compare institu-
tional collections in rural sociology (Woods and Russell 2023) and 
programs in Sociology (Woods 2024).  For the sake of simplicity this 
third approach will only model comparisons of journal use of four 
institutions: Pennsylvania State, University of Chicago, Indiana Uni-
versity, and Minnesota (see table 1).   

Penn State graduate students in our cluster for the study of reli-
gion in sociology cite a larger number of different journal titles (see 
table 8). The average number of journals cited per dissertation is 
higher for Penn State and the University of Chicago. Indiana Uni-
versity graduate students cited the fewest number of journal titles.

INSTITUTION # DISSERTATIONS JOURNAL CITATIONS  AVE. CIT/DISS JOURNAL TITLES

PSU 8 1,263 157.9 404

Minnesota 7 842 120.3 311

IU 6 719 119.8 248

UC Chicago 6 895 149.2 313

TABLE 8. Citations and journal-title counts of dissertations from four BTAA 
institutions.

General Comparisons
A general comparison using Spearman’s rho of CD Rank list of dis-
sertations of each institution provides an initial comparison of local 
differences and similarities of journal use (see table 9). CD Rank list 
of journals used by graduate students at the University of Minne-
sota and Indiana University have a high level of congruency (.628). 
Whereas there is little congruency between the CD Rank list of jour-
nals used by graduate students in sociology at Penn State and the 
University of Minnesota (.384). There is a weak congruency between 
the CD Rank List from Penn State and the University of Chicago (.501) 
and little congruency between PSU and Minnesota (.467).

PSU MINNESOTA IU UC CHICAGO

PSU 1 0.384 0.467 0.501

Minnesota 0.384 1 0.628 0.471

IU 0.467 0.628 1 0.501

UC Chicago 0.501 0.471 0.501 1

TABLE 9. Comparison of congruency of institutions’ CD Rank list using Spearman’s rho



54  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

Comparing Institutions: Shared Titles
Our findings reinforce the importance of understanding local jour-
nal use, but further examination and comparisons of the CD Rank 
lists can offer further insight. For example, there are 34 journal titles 
shared by all four institutions with clusters in Political Science and 
Psychology. Sixty titles are shared by at least three institutions and 
137 by at least two programs.  There are 686 titles cited by only one in-
stitution. Penn State and Indiana University share the most titles (102) 
whereas Penn State paired with Minnesota and University of Chicago 
have largest number of journal titles not shared (see table 10).

PSU MINNESOTA IU U CHICAGO

PSU - 83 [shared] 102 [shared] 88 [shared]

Minnesota 549 [individual] - 84 [shared] 84 [shared]

IU 448 [individual] 391 [individual] - 80 [shared]

U Chicago 541 [individual] 456 [individual] 401 [individual] -

TABLE 10. Comparison of journal titles shared between institutions based on CD Rank list

Comparing the Shared Clusters Themes
An examination of the CD Ranks list from each institution offers a 
further way to compare the dominate cluster themes between insti-
tutions (Woods 2023). Table 11 provides a breakdown of the cluster 
themes occurring in the top thirty journal titles from all four institu-
tions CD Rank list. For example, journal use by graduate students at 
the University of Minnesota and Indiana University share clusters of 
journals around the theme gender and ethnicity, whereas Penn State 
has a unique focus on demography and family. A broader examination 
of journals beyond the top 30 may identify more thematic similarities, 
but this method still identifies differences in theme dominance. In 
sum, we can see the study of religion in sociology with all its nuances. 

INSTITUTION CLUSTER THEMES

Pennsylvania State University Family, Demography, Medicine, Life Course, Quantitative 
Research, Psychology

University of Chicago Culture, Media, Psychology, Qualitative Research, Economics, 
Political Science

University of Minnesota Ethnicity, Race, Qualitative Research, Gender, Women, 
Ethnography, Culture

Indiana University Political Science, Gender, Psychology, Public Opinion, Ethnic-
ity, Race, Life Course

TABLE 11. Cluster themes based on CD Ranked list of institutions



PAPERS  55

This cluster analysis approach can also provide the librarian with 
a way to explore further the differences, cluster pairings and themes 
that may garner local interest in the future. For example, understand-
ing graduate student journal use in gender research for Penn State 
graduate students from analysis of its use at Indiana University and 
the University of Minnesota.    

Comparing Disciplines
For future research beyond this study, the emphasis in journal clus-
ters in dissertations in psychology, political science and earlier in 
our exploration of health and medicine begs comparison of CD Rank 
lists between journal use from this study. In sum, how does journal 
use and ranking within dissertation from other the disciplines com-
pare with our study?    

INFORMING REFERENCE, COLLECTIONS & INSTRUCTION

It is essential for library subject specialists to understand unique 
journal usage within the local and global, and interdisciplinary con-
text of their institution’s programs and departments. As we have 
seen, the study of religion in sociology is a broad term that can be 
brought into focus by exploring the unique journal titles used by 
graduate students by examining journal clusters, exploring inter-
disciplinary journal pairings, and comparing institutional use. Thus, 
providing a complementary approach to curriculum evaluation. To 
conclude our discussion, we will turn our focus on the application 
of findings for our study to briefly discuss how these inform collec-
tions, reference, and instruction.  

Collection Development
Journals are clearly the most heavily used format used by graduate 
students studying religion in sociology. Earlier we saw that journals 
were cited 56% whereas monographs 33%. Furthermore, the study 
identified 1,775 unique journal titles spanning numerous disciplines. 
The sheer volume of titles makes it necessary to explore integrative 
ways to identify core titles rather than simply coming up with a single 
local list based on “prestige.”  

 Collection development of journals in any discipline cannot be 
done within a vacuum of a single subject area or program. This study, 
rather than providing a single list of journals, demonstrates three 



56  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

methods that are meant to provide creative ways to explore jour-
nal use across disciplines, programs, and institutions. In sum, it is 
essential for the subject specialist to be aware of core journal titles 
that span across programs and disciplines as part of their collection 
development responsibilities. A journal cluster approach can be an 
effective alternative to exploring the nuances of a particular disci-
pline. This method can be an effective way for librarians at academic 
institutions that are not large enough to include programs to explore 
journal use within their disciplines.   

Understanding journal clusters from other institutions can be 
equally useful for developing collections. For example, there is a jour-
nal cluster focusing on gender in dissertations by graduate students 
at the University of Minnesota and Indiana University. An examina-
tion of high use journals in the gender cluster can provide a better 
understanding of important journals for gender research that may 
have lower use within the local context. This can be important par-
ticularly for anticipating changing research trends or simply failing 
to see that gender is studied more heavily in another discipline not 
caught by a study in dissertations in sociology.            

Finally, if journals are signposts of trends and focus of research 
within a discipline, then a deeper understanding of journal usage is 
important for the subject specialists to carry out effective collection 
development for all material types. A cluster analysis of citations 
from dissertations that cite this journal can be useful for understand-
ing the other types of materials used by graduate students to better 
understand monographs and grey literature that may need to be 
considered in collection development efforts.

Instruction & Reference
Journals are a unique signpost for developing a subject specialist 
approach to library instruction and reference. Often there is con-
siderable emphasis placed on the importance and understanding 
of scholarly articles and how to find them without providing a meta 
understanding of why journals exist and their interconnectivity in 
the creation of scholarship and discovery.

Our clustered approach to exploring journal use offers a context to 
help students think about the six concepts anchoring the ACRL Infor-
mation Literacy Frameworks (ACRL Board 2015; Badke 2015). More 
importantly journal use offers an integrated approach to discussing 
the framework based on all the concepts: information authority, cre-
ation, value, inquiry, conversation, and exploration.   



PAPERS  57

Often the graduate student’s faculty advisor is the one directing 
the student to the relevant journals on their topics. Consequently, 
directing students in your instruction and reference to journals 
found in an analysis of journal citations in dissertations will often 
correspond to the subject expertise of the faculty advisor. In sum, 
citation analysis can build credibility not only with the students but 
with the teaching faculty. That said, the interdisciplinary nature of 
social science research offers the librarians who have studied journal 
use across the disciplines and institutions the opportunity to recom-
mend journals outside the subject expertise of the teaching faculty.

A librarian’s programmatic understanding of journal use in dis-
sertations can potentially enhance instruction and reference inter-
actions with students writing literature reviews. Particularly those 
looking for scholarly materials. Knowledge of the core journals in a 
program or clusters of journals within a subtopic such as aging, edu-
cation, and gender can be useful for researchers who are trying to 
write comprehensively for a systematic review, dissertation, or thesis. 

Library instruction usually includes a discussion of scholarly jour-
nal articles among other relevant topics. By examining the journal 
titles in dissertations, the subject specialist can build deeper relevan-
cy around this topic. For example: Identify a list of core journal titles 
within the program that you would recommend browsing. Explain 
the value of setting up alert services for relevant journal titles cited 
in dissertations within their program. Inform the students that it is 
not unusual to cite journals in dissertations outside of the domain 
of sociology. 

LIMITATIONS

The study focuses on the journal use of graduate students in sociol-
ogy in the BTAA from 2016–2020. The findings do not necessarily 
translate to the journal use of sociology faculty whose motivations 
of publishing for tenure and journal prestige influence journal use. 
That said, the faculty often provide input into the journals that are 
used by graduate students.

Identifying the study of religion in sociology simply by selecting 
dissertations that cite three sociology of religion journals does not 
necessarily mean that all the dissertations’ topics are congruent with 
the study of the sociology of religion. However, since the focus of this 
study is journal clusters, dissertations that are outside of the sociol-
ogy of religion theme still offer useful insight.  



58  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

Dissertations are a unique form of publication. For example, the 
average dissertation in this study from Penn State has 158 journal 
citations (see table 8), whereas scholarly articles published in Social 
Forces averaged 70.3 citations 2020 (Web of Science 2020). The over-
all structure of a dissertation contains approximately three chapters 
focusing on different and closely related issues. 

Time is also an important limitation to consider. This study in-
cludes dissertations from 2016–2020. A journal started later in this 
time frame would not have the same opportunity of being cited as 
one that existed during this span of time. Further research could 
explore the average frequency for each year, but the number and 
nature of accepted dissertations each year creates a different type 
of limitation.

REFERENCES

Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). 2015. 
“Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.” 
https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework. 

Badke, William. 2015. “DIKTUON: The Framework for Information 
Literacy and Theological Education: Introduction to the ACRL 
Framework.” Theological Librarianship 8 (2). https://doi.
org/10.31046/tl.v8i2.385.

Gibbons, J.E. 1993. Nonparametric Measures of Association. SAGE 
Publications. https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412985291.

Hérubel, Jean-Pierre V. M. 1994. “Citation Studies in the 
Humanities and Social Sciences: A Selective and Annotated 
Bibliography.” Collection Management 18 (3–4): 89–137. https://
doi.org/10.1300/J105v18n03_06.

Hoffmann, Kristin, and Lise Doucette. 2012. “A Review of Citation 
Analysis Methodologies for Collection Management.” College & 
Research Libraries 73 (4): 321–35. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl-254.

Possamai, Adam, and Anthony J. Blasi. 2020a. “The Religious 
Research Association.” In The SAGE Encyclopedia of the 
Sociology of Religion. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE 
Publications, Inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529714401.

———. 2020b. “The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.” 
In The SAGE Encyclopedia of the Sociology of Religion. 
Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc. https://doi.
org/10.4135/9781529714401.

“Social Science Research.” n.d. Elsevier Publisher. https://www.
sciencedirect.com/journal/social-science-research.

https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
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https://doi.org/10.31046/tl.v8i2.385
https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412985291
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https://doi.org/10.1300/J105v18n03_06
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https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529714401
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/social-science-research


PAPERS  59

Web of Science. 2020. “2020 Journal Performance Data for: Social 
Forces.” Journal Citation Reports. Clarivate Publisher.

Woods, Stephen. 2023. “Exploring Journal Use in Graduate 
Research in the Sociology of Religion: Informing Collections, 
Instruction, and Reference (ATLA Dataset).” ScholarSphere: 
Pennsylvania State University Libraries. https://scholarsphere.
psu.edu/resources/41d9bde1-0721-4eee-883d-a202a4eef4f2.

———. 2024. “Examination of Journal Usage in Sociology 
Dissertations Using Citation Analysis.” Portal: Libraries and the 
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https://scholarsphere.psu.edu/resources/41d9bde1-0721-4eee-883d-a202a4eef4f2
https://scholarsphere.psu.edu/resources/41d9bde1-0721-4eee-883d-a202a4eef4f2
https://doi.org/10.1080/00987913.2022.2127601
https://doi.org/10.1080/00987913.2022.2127601
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