Sociology - Basics

  You can use an Article Database to find journal, magazine, and newspaper articles on your topic. 

When you start research for any project in Sociology, search in one or all of the following databases:

Sociological Abstracts

ProQuest Sociology

Academic Search Premiere

SAGE Premier Collection

Other databases that include articles of relevance to sociology and social structures include:

Communication & Mass Media Complete

PsycINFO

PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) International

Still other databases of help for particular topics include...

GenderWatch if your topic involves the differences between men and women. 

Ethnic NewsWatch if your topic involves race of any sort. 

ProQuest Criminal Justice or Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text if your topic relates to policing, crime, or other issues of social mediation.  

AgeLine if your topic involves the elderly. 

ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) if your topic involves schools and education.

To open any of these databases, open the list of Sociology databases, and scroll through the list until you find one of interest. Click on the link for that database, input your myCSULA authentication (if you're working off-campus), then begin an Advanced Search! 

To read articles on specific sociological topics, consult the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Online, which contains specially-commissioned entries on sociological theories, research, and contemporary developments in the field. Essays include references and suggested readings, and the encyclopedia is searchable by people, periods, places, and subjects.  This can be an excellent place to start your research!

• Use a database that indexes peer-reviewed journals, such as Sociological Abstracts or Social Sciences Full Text.
   
• On the Search screen in any database, click the option (if offered) to limit results to "Scholarly/Peer-Reviewed Journals."
  
  
• Scan the abstract of any article to identify words typically used in original research, such as "methods," "survey," "data," "results," "findings" or "conclusions." If the abstract includes some combination of these terms, there's a good chance that it is of scholarly or peer-reviewed nature.
  
  
• Still unsure if the article comes from a peer-reviewed journal?  Identify the name of the journal in which the article was originally published, and find the publication's home site on the Internet.  Look for information "About" the journal and its editorial standards.  If the journal says that submissions are reviewed by an editorial panel of the author's peers, then it's a peer-reviewed journal!