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Sociology Sources

What you are looking for

You will need to find articles, books or other scholarly sources that provide a background information as well as scholarly arguments about your theme. This tab provides links to some of the best databases for finding these secondary sources (below). Ideally you will find 10+ secondary sources about your topic; you can edit the list down to be more selective later. Try to put them into groups according to their main focus or type of argument.

You will be looking for sources that provide Arguments about an aspect of your topic. 

Keyword ideas:

  • If applicable, use Wikipedia to find your topic; write down important names, dates, etc. 
  • Proper names of places (e.g. Oregon)
  • Names of groups (e.g. Latino/Latinx, Asian-American)
  • Names of events, legislation, court cases, etc. (e.g. “Vietnam War”, “Title IX”)
  • Topical words (e.g. .students, university, elders, immigration, veterans)
  • Methodological words (e.g. Ethnography, Interview, Oral History, Intervention, Outcomes)

Databases for Scholarly Sources

Social Science Database (Proquest) 

Proquest's Social Science Database is a resource for those who need access to a variety of journals related to Sociology (and other social sciences). The database includes over 1000 titles, with the majority available in full text. It covers core disciplines across the social sciences including sociology, social work, anthropology, politics and other areas, featuring journals from over 50 countries, facilitating multidisciplinary research and providing researchers with a variety of perspectives. Note: Two other more specialized Proquest databases may also be useful. See: Sociology Database and Social Services Abstracts

Pacific Library - Boxer Search 

Pacific's library search includes millions of items, including both electronic and print material. All of our books and e-books are here, as well as about 80% of the journal articles that we have paid access to. This is the quickest way to get into sources that you can access immediately, without having to guess whether you'll be able to get the full text. Tips: 

Google Scholar

This database gathers sources from many other databases into one centralized location. It will find nearly any academic book or article that has been published. The downside is that it is so large, that the items you really want to find may be buried under dozens of irrelevant sources. Also, there may be many articles that you cannot actually open. Tips: 

  • Are the articles you are finding too old? Change the date range using the tool on the left side:
  • If you find one really good article/book, you can find others like it by clicking on the "Cited By" or "Related Articles" links:
  • Become a Google search expert by using their advanced operators
  • Can't figure out how to open the actual journal article or book? See if you can get it through Pacific using the tips here. 

 

ERIC

This database is the best source for research related to education. If you are doing research for anything related to elementary, secondary or college education, such as juvenile crime rates and schools, this is going to be a good place to look. It also allows you to limit your research just to the elementary school, high school, etc., levels. 

Criminal Justice Database (Proquest) and Criminal Justice Collection (Gale)

These two specialized Criminal Justice journal databases contain only Criminal Justice-related journal articles and are excellent for digging deeper into the available literature. These databases include both articles to which Pacific has direct, full-text access, and articles for which we only have abstracts. To get access to articles that you can't access as full-text, see: How to Get Access (Summit & ILL)

CQ Researcher
This database contains very nice overviews of policies/research on big issues like Gentrification, Assisted Suicide, Homelessness, Attracting Jobs, etc. Note: The overviews themselves are a bit broad and encylopedia-like, but each overview includes an extensive bibliography at the end, which lays out many other key sources very nicely! If you find a good article here, it may point you towards 20 other high-quality sources that you can use to write your paper. 

JSTOR 

This database is especially good for topics in history, political science, English and the humanities. Its biggest negative is that most of the sources in it were published 3+ years ago. Use the Advanced Search for best results! If you scroll down on Advanced Search page, you can pick specific topics to search within. Example: 
 

Dissertations and Theses (Proquest)
This database is an amazing resource for dissertations (which are the final papers of Ph.D. and Master's students, typically 50-250 pages long). This is a great place to find cutting edge research on recent issues. These sources are generally very difficult to find except through this database! Example:

Many More Options...

Many other specialized databases are available through the library. See the "Databases" link on the Library Home Page, then look under the subject "History."