SOC 201: Contemporary Social Problems

Trying to access library resources online? Follow the instructions on the Online Access to Library Resources page to:

• access library databases, articles, and ebooks, both on-campus and off-campus
• troubleshoot error messages or other issues with accessing online sources from the library

1. How do I search for sources about my social problem?

• Identify the keywords of your topic and use those as your search words. 
• Each book and article has tags assigned to it, words or shorts phrases that make each book or article searchable
  • You want your search words to match those tags. 
  • Words like impact, effect, or factors are not used as tags

2. I have too many search hits. How do I find what I need for my assignment? 

• Use Refine Your Search options to focus your search hits so they're more relevant to your assignment needs
• You can focus your search hits to:
  • peer-reviewed or scholarly articles
  • content type, such as journal articles or book chapters
  • discipline, sources relevant to specific disciplines
  • subject terms, to help you focus your topic and sources to specific subject areas of interest
  • publication date, so you get the most recent research 
  • language, such as just English articles
• Example: for your Sociology assignments, you should use peer-reviewed, scholarly sources and books and articles with up to date research:
  • Under Refine Your Search: 
    • check Peer Review and then Journal Article under Content Type to focus search hits to peer-reviewed articles
    • check Book Chapters under Content Type to focus search hits to scholarly book chapters
    • check Sociology and Social Interest under Discipline to focus search hits to those relevant to sociology
  • Under Publication Date:
    • move the scroll bar over to 2008 to present to focus search hits to sources with up-to-date research

3. I can't find anything on my topic. What do I do?

• The search words you're using to describe your topic may not match the tags that have been assigned to books and articles on that topic
  • Look through the Subject terms in the Refine Your Search sidebar and check the boxes beside the topic areas that interest you
• When you find an article that looks interesting, look at its assigned tags 
  • Add any relevant tags to your search
  • This will also help you develop your research questions and search for articles about your specific research questions 
• There may not be research tying your main ideas together yet
  • Try searching for your main ideas separately and linking their findings together
• If you've found one article that's relevant for your topic, look through the sources in its References list to see if any of them are also relevant to your research