Sociology Resources

The following is a selected list of resources for starting research in Sociology. For further assistance, contact Allison Carr, Social Sciences Librarian.

	Getting Started
	Literature Review
	Books
	Journal Articles
	Web Sites
	Citing your Sources

Getting Started

These sources can help you identify a topic for your research. Some provide an overview of a specific issue and suggest other materials which might be useful for your research. Others help you to notice a topic that might be of interest to you.

Encyclopedia of Sociology
REFERENCE HM425 .E5 2000

Encyclopedia of American Social History
REFERENCE HN 57 .E58 1993

Encyclopedia of Marriage and the Family
REFERENCE HQ 9 .E52 1995

 

Literature Reviews

Do you need to write a literature as part of an assignment? A literature review covers previous scholarly research on your topic. In order to be thorough, you should read more articles than you plan to include in your literature review. Be sure to start early - you may need to order articles through Interlibrary Loan, which can take up to two weeks.

What is a literature review?

A literature review is not research, it is a review of the research that has been done on your topic.

A literature review is NOT just a summary, but a conceptually organized synthesis of the results of your search. It must

• organize information and relate it to the thesis or research question you are developing
• synthesize and critically analyze the results comparing and contrasting their findings
• identify controversy and themes that appear in the literature

Check out these sites for more 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

Tips on conducting research for a literature review

• Use bibliographies and reference pages of articles to direct your research. You may start to see some trends with the people who are writing about your topic. Check the bibliography for more articles about your topic.
• Use the authors who you have found to be writing on your topic as starting points. Look for additional articles, and rebuttals, retractions or responses to their research.

Use this chart to track articles you read for your literature review.

 

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

To look for articles in journals, 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. You can also browse a list of electronic journals for Sociology.

VIDEO: Learn how to find articles (approx. 6 min.)

Most Useful Sociological Abstracts Provides access to the latest international findings in theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and political science. Coverage: 1963→current Social Services Abstracts Abstracts of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development. Coverage: 1980→current JSTOR Contains (EXCEPT for the latest five years) core scholarly journals in sociology, history, economics, political science, mathematics, African-American & Asian studies, literature, humanities, music, and biological, health & general sciences. Coverage: 1838→2003 Also Useful PAIS An important index to political, economic, and social issues in current debate. Coverage: 1972→current PsycINFO Available via EbscoHost: A comprehensive international database of psychology, covering the academic, research, and practice literature in psychology from over 45 countries in more than 30 languages. Coverage: 1887→current Womens Studies International Includes over 204,000 records drawn from a variety of essential women's studies databases. Coverage: 1972→current Academic Search Premier This scholarly collection offers information in nearly every area of academic study including: computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, ethnic studies, and many more. Coverage: 1975→current GPO: U.S. Government Printing Office Abstracts from all types of U.S. government documents, including Congressional reports, hearings, debates, and records. Coverage: 1976→current ScienceDirect Provides full text access to over 1,000 journals covering all fields of science. Coverage: 1995→current Project Muse Full-text coverage for hundreds of scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics Coverage: 1993→current Blackwell Journals (has moved to Wiley Interscience) As of June 30, 2008, Wiley Interscience now includes Blackwell Journals. Please use the Wiley Interscience database connection. This message will disappear October 1, 2008. Coverage: current Sage Journals Online Sage Journals Online includes over 460 journals in Business, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology and Medicine. Coverage: current

Web Sites

There are a number of useful sociology Web sites. Make sure you evaluate each site for accuracy and authority.

• Online Reference Sources
• Internet Guides
• Other Web Resources