Review published research on your topic to and follow the references and citations to datasets others have used. You may be able to use the same data (if it is open), or it may point you towards analogous datasets or other entities that may have produced relevant data.
Data is the raw information that is collected through research. For example, data might come in the form of medical patient vital signs on a spreadsheet or sales figures and product costs for a span of years from a particular company. Statistics refer to a more organized form of that data. Statistics are interpretations of that raw data that help to show relationships and answer questions.
When seeking online sources that will have the type of data you need, consider the following questions to help guide your searches:
Who is likely to be collecting this type of data? (professional communities, scientific organizations, law enforcement, etc.)
What type of data are you looking for? (what/who is being analyzed)
When is the scope of coverage you are seeking? (span of years)
Where does this data originate? (is there a geographic location to consider)
Why do you need this data? (this question applies to what format you will need the data to be in so that you can use it)
There are thousands of repositories available for freely accessing data. If you aren't sure where your data will be housed, you could try the following:
There's nothing wrong with starting with a general Google search. You might might start by searching for "data" or "dataset" alongside your topic or discipline. Consider adding a particular site domain ending like "site:gov" or "site:.edu" to your search terms.
You could use Google's advanced search option and utilize the domain or file type fields. Additionally, there is a separate Google Dataset Search to try. Lastly, Google Scholar is an option if you would like to pull up scholarly articles on topics relevant to yours and comb them for datasets. For example, you might search for datasets in humanities and scroll for recent publications.
If you prefer to start from a list of database/repository options, adjust your search terms in Google for lists of resources your research area. For example, search using the term "chemistry data LibGuide" to return guides similar to this one that cover data within your subject. You may also find curated lists of online sources of open data published to trusted blogs and websites.
