Fuller Usage of Punch-Card Equipment in Social Science Research through Improving Techniques
W. E. Paulson, Robert L. Smith · Journal of Farm Economics · 1953
T HIS paper is primarily concerned with methodology in the use of IBM equipment especially adaptable to social science research. No attempt is made at completeness of treatment. Rather, the discussion is in the nature of a preview. Detailed treatment on specific phases of punchcard techniques will appear in a later series of papers. The methodology described has been developed largely through trial and error. Procedures recommended, in most instances, have evolved from application of practices now discarded as inadequate and outmoded. In an age of mechanization, IBM offers the way to research workers. Of concern in the matter of whether or not to adopt the punchcard method is the question of how far machine operations may be substituted for hand work. In the main this involves three factors: (1) techniques to facilitate the transferring of data and coded information from schedules to punch cards; (2) methods of preparing and handling of coding in all its aspects and applications; and (3) procedures insuring the most direct and complete machine sorts and tabulations.