Sociology 480 Course Guide
The purpose of this guide is to familiarize you with the best resources for researching topics covered within your course
Literature Review
Check out these sites for help understanding literature reviews
- How to ... Write a Literature Review, UC Santa Cruz Library
- The Literature Review: A few tips on conducting it, University of Toronto
- How to do a Literature Review, North Carolina A&T State University
Developing a Search Strategy
After you have focused your topic by writing your thesis statement you want to develop a good search strategy. Select the main concepts in your statement, find synonyms or alternative terms, and use Booleans to connect them appropriately.
EXAMPLE:
- synonyms:
i.e. women, woman, female, girl - truncation:
i.e. "sex*" will get "sex, sexual, sexism" etc. - Boolean operators and parentheses :
i.e. (women or female) and (pictur* or portrait*) and (mass media not tv)
Useful Subject Terms
Can't think of terms to describe your topic? When using various databases or the library catalog, look for phrases labeled "subjects" or "descriptors." These are very specific terms librarians use to describe a topic. This can help you find the most appropriate resources for your topic.
Modify your search(if needed)
If too many records have been retrieved (more than 50)...
Review the options for limiting your search. You can limit by date, by language, or by adding key terms or descriptors. Limit your search by adding terms to your search statement using "AND'.
- Example: To narrow a search on bulimia combine bulimia AND college students
If too few records have been retrieved...
Check your spelling. The database only retrieves exact matches. Eliminate the least important concept.
- Example: Learning disabilities AND college-students AND alcohol abuse. In this search, college-students is the least important concept, so you would enter a new statement: learning-disabilities and (alcoholism or alcohol abuse).
Expand your search by adding terms to your original search statement using "OR"
- Example: Anorexia-nervosa OR bulimia.
Books
To search for books, you need to use a library catalog. Depending on how much time you have, you have a couple of options
Books at Cal State San Marcos
Library Catalog
Search our local collection of about 250,000 books.
Other Options
Circuit (1-3 day delivery)
Search the collections of other San Diego area libraries -- about 3,000,000 books. Find and request books directly online; pick them up at our Library in 1-3 days.
WorldCat (5-10 day delivery)
Search the collections of libraries world-wide -- about 52,000,000 books. Find a book in this database, and fill-out an Interlibrary Loan delivery request. Book will be delivered to Library for pickup.
Journal Articles
Learn how to find articles using Sociolgical Abstracts 
To look for articles in journals, newspapers, or magazines, you will need to start with a research database. The following databases provide abstracts of articles from thousands of journals and other sources, often providing full-text.
Most Useful
Also Useful
|
Style Guides
Sites with examples of in-text citations and works cited pages.
APA Quick Reference
Guide 
In-text citing and works cites examples.
Using APA Style 5th edition
The OWL (Online Writing Lab) at Purdue
University provides a myriad of example
of works cited and in-text citations.
Bookmark this page!
apastyle.org
Produced by the APA, this site contains
a wealth of information about APA citation
style. It is not a replacement for owning
the Publication Manual, though.
 |
Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. 5th ed. Washington, DC : American Psychological Association, 2001. |
