Sociology 15: Sociological Research Methods (Polonijo)

#1 Identify your question. Identify the key concepts and related terms. Tip:  You may want to re-phrase your question. Background reading can help you identify related terms and further define or narrow your topic. 

#2 Find an appropriate search tool. Consider your subject matter, discipline of study, type of information needed (e.g. peer reviewed articles)

#3 Start with a simple search based on your key concepts. Tip: You may also have to look at literature that refers to one (not all) aspects of your research question.

#4 Use specific search strategies.

• Use AND to join dissimilar terms. Use OR to join synonyms or related terms.
• Truncate words with * to pick up variations of that word.
• Use "quotation marks" for phrase searching.
• Use database filters e.g. limit to scholarly journals.
• Consider searching in a specific field e.g. title (article title) or source (journal title)

#5 Search and skim results. Look for the language and terms that researchers use and that the database assigns to articles (Subjects).

#6 Switch up your searches.  Use promising new terminology.  Your search may become more sophisticated.

#7 Explore bibliographies to locate other articles, books, or authors who have written on the same topic. Find known items. Tip: See "Find a Known Item" tab on this guide.

Each row is meant to convey its own concept.  However, a concept may be represented by different words.

Sometimes you can combine two concepts into a single item.  For example, your search may include the two concepts of College AND Student though depending on your results, you may wish to just search for "College student".

Join different concepts with AND.  Join similar concepts with OR.

Using Sociological Abstracts

 Through this tutorial you will learn how to: 

• access Sociological Abstracts
• construct a search
• apply useful database limiters
• access full-text of articles
• generate citations in ASA format

Instructions:

1. Connect to the campus network via the VPN if you are off-campus.  You will need this connection to access one or more library databases while taking the tutorial.

2. Take the short quiz at the end of the tutorial.  Enter your email address AND your professor's email address. Afterwards locate the email confirmation. These emails often go to your SPAM folder, so be sure to check there.  It is often easiest to search in your email account for the phrase "Results for Using Sociological Abstracts" to find your email confirmation.

3. You are ready! Click on the link below to start the tutorial. Follow the instructions on the left hand of the screen and, as directed, complete activities in the main screen (right).

Using Sociological Abstracts >> https://ucmercedlibrary.libwizard.com/f/sociological-abstracts

Use an article's citations trails to find more information related to your research. This video will show you how to locate an article's citation trails in Web of Science, Google Scholar, and UC Library Search. (3 min.)

Learn more at the research guide linked below: