Introduction
This guide will direct you to resources that will aid in the completion of your research paper assignment. All of these resources can be accessed either on campus or remotely by entering in the S number on the back of your student ID.
If you need any assistance in using these resources or if you are having difficulty in locating information, please contact the Sociology Liaison Librarian.
Literature Reviews
Use the resources below for information on how to conduct a literature review.
Preparing a Literature Review Research Help Guide
Writing Literature Reviews: A Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences
Jose L. Galvan
Ref H61.8 .G34
Reference Materials
Use reference materials to get an overview of the topic you are researching as well as to understand how sociologists approach your research topic. When using reference materials make note of any words that are used to describe your topic, these words can serve as keywords when it comes time to search for articles in online journal databases. Also, pay attention to the citations located at the end of topic entries, they can be used as a starting point for locating scholarly research.
Gale Virtual Reference Library
Credo Reference
CQ Researcher
Biographical Dictionary to Social Welfare in America
Ref HV27 .B57
Encyclopedia of Homelessness
Ref HV4493 .E53
Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History in North America
Encyclopedia of Sociology
Ref HM425 .E5 (5 volumes)
Search Tips
To search the catalogs and databases highlighted in this guide you will need to use Boolean operators (ANDs and ORs), quotation marks, and truncation to pull up books and articles on your topic. Here is a brief overview of how to use Boolean operators and truncation:
- AND: use AND to link together search topics
nutrition and poverty and academic achievement - OR: use OR to link together synonyms or like concepts
(state health insurance or universal healthcare or "access to healthcare") AND children - *: use truncation to pull up the root of a word with variant endings
subsidi* will pull up items with the words subsidized or subsidies
Journal Articles
For your research assignments you will need to use both scholarly and non-scholarly resources to fuel the discussion of your topic. For a refresher on the differences between a scholarly and non-scholarly resource please consult our popular vs. scholarly webpage. For any assistance in how to use WebBridge please consult our WebBridge video tutorial or our WebBridge webpage.
Search Multiple Databases at Once
CrossSearch
EBSCO Databases
To learn how to search multiple EBSCO databases at once please consult our EBSCO Multiple Database Search video tutorial.
Databases for Scholarly Research
Listed below are the core online journal databases for this course. Keep in mind that the library subscribes to a number of subject specific online journal databases, if you are having trouble locating articles you may simply need to use another database. If that is the case, consult the library's Subject Guides, Article Databases page, or contact the Sociology Liaison Librarian who will then guide you toward the appropriate database.
SocINDEX
Academic Search Premier
ProQuest Central
Communication and Mass Media Complete
ERIC (Education)
PsycINFO
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
Databases for Popular Magazine and Newspaper Articles
Newspaper and popular magazine articles are extremely important resources to use when examining social welfare and public policy concerns. Newspapers and popular magazines are quick to respond to new social welfare issues, programs, and initiatives on both a national and local scale. These resources will come in especially handy if you are focusing on a recent development, initiative, or program.
In addition to the databases below you will also want to consult the Current Events Research Help page to be directed to more library and Internet current event resources.
LexisNexis Academic
ProQuest Newsstand
Academic Search Premier
Newspaper Source
New Hampshire Index
New York Times (Historical 1851–2003)
Wall Street Journal
Books
Geisel Library Catalog
Search the library catalog to locate books in Geisel Library. Most sociology books are located on the Upper Level of the library in the H through HX sections.
WorldCat
If you have searched the Geisel Library Catalog but could not locate a book on your topic try searching WorldCat, a database that allows you to search the collections of libraries throughout the United States. When you locate a title of interest, click on the ILL icon in the book's catalog record to request the item through interlibrary loan. Your book(s) will be available for pickup in the library within 7-14 days. For assistance in using this database please Ask a Librarian.
Ebrary
This library of over 40,000 e-books spans across all scholarly disciplines. Books can either be opened in QuickView for instant viewing or in the ebrary Reader (a downloadable plug-in), which provides enhanced functionality such as the ability to copy/paste, highlight, or take notes in a particular book.
Access restricted to the Saint Anselm College community.
Below is a sampling of titles that are included in ebrary:
American Poverty in a New Era of Reform
Faces of Poverty: Portraits of Women and Children on Welfare
Geography of American Poverty: Is There a Need for Place-Based Policies?
Poverty in America: A Handbook (2nd Edition)
Race, Poverty, and Domestic Policy
Standards-Based Reform and the Poverty Gap: Lessons for No Child Left Behind
Welfare and Work: Experiences in Six Cities
Work over Welfare: The Inside Story of the 1996 Welfare Reform Law
Web Resources
Web Portals
USA.gov
Use usa.gov to search for government reports and statistics at the federal, state, or
local level.
Institute for Research on Poverty - Poverty Links
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Internet Crossroads in the Social Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Search the Internet Crossroads in the Social Sciences by keyword to locate the websites of organizations conducting research on your topic.
Google Scholar
Use Google Scholar to locate scholarly research on your topic. Use the above Google Scholar link to enable WebBridge links in Google Scholar, this will allow you to access the full text of articles through our library resources or to place an interlibrary loan request right from Google Scholar.
Research Report Aggregators
Use the following websites to locate electronically published research written by various think tanks, policy institutions, non-governmental organizations, non-for-profits, and research foundations. All of the websites are searchable by keyword or browsable by subject area or research institution.
IssueLab
Policy Archive
Center for Governmental Studies and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Library
Policy Library
Poverty Research Centers / Foundations
Browse through the websites of the following poverty research centers to locate freely available statistics, working papers, and reports on issues related to poverty.
Center for Poverty Research
University of Kentucky
Economic Mobility Project
Pew Charitable Trusts
Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008
United States Census Bureau
Institute for Poverty Research
Northwestern University
Institute for Research on Poverty
University of Wisconsin-Madison
National Center for Children in Poverty
Columbia University
National Poverty Center
University of Michigan
Population Reference Bureau
Poverty Scorecard
Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law
State Health Facts
Kaiser Family Foundation
West Coast Poverty Research Center
University of Washington
Citing Sources
Sociology researchers tend to use the ASA (American Sociology Association) citation format. Always check with your professor for the required citation style.
If you need to consult the ASA Style Guide while in the library stop at the reference desk and ask for call number: Ready Ref HM569 .A54.
- ASA Format (American Sociological Association) from California State University at Los Angeles (PDF/68KB)
- Formatting in Sociology from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
- Quick Style Guide for Students Writing Sociology Papers from the American Sociological Association; has examples and guidelines for documents
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