Research Guides: Sociology 380: Intro to Research Methods (St. George): Home

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Social Sciences Librarian

Contact:

cooperliz@unm.edu
505-277-1419
Zimmerman Library, 2nd Floor, Herzstein Latin American Reading Room

Subjects:International Studies, Latin American Studies, Linguistics, National Security Studies, Political Science, Psychology, Public Health, Sociology, Speech & Hearing

ASA Citation Style

ASA Quick Tips (PDF)
ASA Style help from the Purdue OWL
ASA Style Guide (5th ed. 2014)
When you really need to consult the actual style guide for a particular issue, consult the library's print copy in the Reference area.

Stuck?

1. You aren't finding anything, or only one or two things that don't really seem quite right.

Talk with your professor or a librarian, you might need to rethink your topic.
Reexamine your search terms
- Try out some synonyms or related terms.
- Use fewer search terms (adding search terms will only make it worse).
Make sure you are searching in the right places - see the recommended resources in this guide.

2. You've found a few GREAT articles or books, but you need 6 or 50 more.

Check the Works Cited or Bibliography or References lists from the great sources that you've already located.

Track down the books by searching Worldcat by Title.
Track down the articles by searching on the "Journal Titles" tab of the search box on the library home page.

Find Scholarly Sources

Try this first:

Sociological Abstracts
Provides access to the latest research in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.

Other databases of interest:

PsycINFO
Find psychology related articles.
Web of Science (Social Science Citation Index)
A multidisciplinary index to the journal literature of the social sciences.
Google Scholar
Be sure to use this link or access it via the Library's database list to connect to UNM owned resources (for free) that you find.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service
Contains summaries of criminal justice publications, including Federal, State, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, and unpublished research. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text
Criminal justice and criminology journals and magazines from around the world.
ERIC (ProQuest)
Articles related to education, schools, students, learning, etc.
Education Research Complete
Good place to look for articles, etc. related to all levels of education and includes articles about education in general, teachers, high school students, college students, children, adolescents, learning, etc.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
Focused on articles related to political science, public administration/policy, law, etc.
PAIS Index
Public policy database -- find articles and government and agency reports related to public policy issues (international in scope).

Search Tips

A quick word about search engines (i.e. Google) vs. library databases

The search box looks the same, but the underlying structure is different. Google and it's brethren are easy-going, they'll take what you give them and return something fairly relevant. Library databases (the library catalog, Sociological Abstracts, etc.) are picky. They want you to be brief and choose your search terms carefully.

General advice

Keep it simple - limit your first searches to two or three keywords.
Try variations of your search terms, i.e., drug abuse, drug use, substance abuse, addiction, illegal drugs.
Use Boolean operators: AND (narrows search, joins different concepts) OR (broadens search, joins similar concepts)
Use the built in limiters - like date or era or peer-reviewed or language.