Library Guides: Sociology: Articles

Tutorials

Tutorial: Finding Articles
Learn the process for finding articles using indexes. This is essential background information for all students. Estimated reading time: 20 minutes.
Using Sociological Abstracts Effectively
Learn to make use of the full functionality of this database.
Tutorial: Scholarly Articles
Scholarly articles: what they are, how to find, recognize, read, and use them. Includes exercises. Estimated reading time: 20 minutes.
ProQuest Guide to Sociological Abstracts
Recognizing Scholarly Resources: JABsa
Part of the "Scholarly Articles" tutorial, this section provides a formula for judging the scholarship of a resource.
Tutorial: Keyword Searching
A short tutorial providing background on how keyword searching works, with tips to improve your search results. Estimated reading time: 10 minutes.
Using Google, Google Scholar and Other Internet Search Engines
A guide on using internet search engines, with a section on using Google Scholar and setting it to recognize you as a Trent student.

Recent Articles from Sociological Forum

The journal is peer reviewed and committed to publishing high quality, cutting edge research on substantive issues of fundamental importance to the study of society.

What is Interlibrary Loan?

Interlibrary loan is a system that allows you to request material from other libraries to be sent to Trent for you to borrow. Normally, there are no costs to use the ILL service. Plan ahead because it can take a few days or even weeks for material to be sent, depending upon availability.

Visit the Interlibrary Loan page for more information.

Omni finds articles, as well as books and other material.

For more control and in-depth searching, use an index (database) to find citations to articles on your topic. Follow the links to the full article. See the "Finding Articles" tutorial for details.

Databases

To find articles, you search an index (a database) for descriptions of articles on your topic.
From there, follow the links to the full article. See the "Finding Articles" tutorial for details.

Successful searching requires two things: search in the right place, and select the best search terms.
For the right place, select a database that covers your topic appropriately.
For search terms, select a few key terms that you expect to find in a description of your topic.

Major Scholarly Databases

The most important database to use for finding articles in Sociology is Sociological Abstracts. This database covers thousands of scholarly journal in Sociology. It's available to search alone, or as part of the ProQuest Sociology Collection.

You may also want to search Scholars Portal Journals and/or Social Sciences Citation Index (from Web of Science).There will be some overlap, but you may find different results in different databases, depending on your topic.

Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
An index to the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews from over 1,800+ serials publications, as well as to books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers.

Sociology Collection This link opens in a new window
Sociological Abstracts in combination with other databases covering the international literature in sociology, social services, and related fields. Together, they provide abstracts, indexing and full text coverage of journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, & working papers.

Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text This link opens in a new window
A database for students and scholars researching criminal justice and criminology. More than 400,000 records for academic journals, magazines, books, and trade publications - selected from the most important sources within the discipline and including the full text for more than 270 magazines and journals.

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Primarily a law and politics resource, it includes articles from more than 2,600 legal periodicals (105 Canadian), as well as the Provincial Statutes of Canada, Revised Statutes of Canada, Annual Statutes, and Canada Supreme Court Reports. International content includes historical and current constitutions from every country in the world, a collection of world trials, and more.

Social Sciences Citation Index This link opens in a new window
The Social Sciences Citation Index is a multidisciplinary index to the scholarly journal literature of the social sciences. It fully indexes more than 1,725 journals across 50 social sciences disciplines, and it indexes individually selected, relevant items from over 3,300 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals. Part of the Web of Science / Web of Knowledge.

Scholars Portal Journals This link opens in a new window
The majority of Trent's full-text e-journals are included in this database. Search them all or browse a specific journal. Many of the journals available from other sites are duplicated on this site.

Other Useful Databases

These databases might also be useful, depending on your topic and your research needs. They're in alphabetical order.

Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
- The Academic OneFile database provides access to a comprehensive collection of peer-reviewed, full-text articles from leading academic journals and reference sources, covering a wide range of subjects including the arts, business, health, history, law, literature, science, and social science, making it a valuable resource for scholarly research and study.
Academic Search Elite This link opens in a new window
- EBSCOhost Academic Search Elite offers a comprehensive collection of peer-reviewed journals, magazines, and newspapers across various academic disciplines.
Annual Reviews This link opens in a new window
- The Annual Reviews database contains a curated collection of authoritative articles published by the nonprofit organization Annual Reviews, covering a wide range of academic disciplines including the biomedical, life, physical, and social sciences to disseminate scholarly knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society.
CAIRN.INFO This link opens in a new window
CAIRN.INFO is an indexing and abstracting database that contains academic resources written in French. This collection covers the humanities and social sciences and includes journals, eBooks, and conference proceedings.
Canadian Business and Current Affairs Database (CBCA) This link opens in a new window
Indexes over 1,665 titles in current events, business, science, the arts, and academic information as produced in Canada.
Combines high-quality indexing with direct access to over 500 full text periodicals and daily news sources, over 95% Canadian. Includes journals, magazines and newspapers, both scholarly and popular titles.
Canadian Periodical Index (CPI.Q) This link opens in a new window
Indexing of nearly 700 Canadian periodicals (English and French) with full-text articles from 240 Canadian periodicals. Covers journals, magazines, and newspapers. Not all are scholarly sources - select "peer-reviewed publications" to limit your results.
ERIC - through ProQuest This link opens in a new window
Free access to more than 1.2 million bibliographic records of journal articles and other education-related materials, including including books, research syntheses, conference papers, technical reports, policy papers, and other education-related materials. This is the same database as the free site available from the Educational Resources Information Center.
GenderWatch This link opens in a new window
full text database of unique and diverse publications that focus on how gender impacts a broad spectrum of subject areas. Includes scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books, booklets and pamphlets, conference proceedings, and government, non-governmental organizations, and special reports. It covers over 200 publications.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
A searchable database of full-text research journals in a variety of academic disciplines. JSTOR includes the complete backruns of the journals, from the first volume to a moving wall of 2-10 years ago. Some titles include current volumes. Trent subscribes to JSTOR collections I to XI and the Life Sciences.
SAGE Journals Online This link opens in a new window
730 scholarly e-journals from the publisher SAGE. They can be searched as a whole, or browsed by title or discipline.

Troubleshooting Searches

Too few articles:

Check for typos and spelling. Consider using both American and British spellings (eg. behaviour or behavior).
Remove long phrases.
Make sure you're using a database that is likely to include information on your topic.
Try using other synonyms and alternate words joined by the Boolean Operator 'OR' (e.g. aboriginal or indigenous or First Nations).
Check your Boolean logic. Are you using 'AND' when you should be using 'OR'?
If you have found at least one good article, look at the references of this article to find other related articles OR use the 'Find citing' or 'Find related' buttons when available in the databases.

Too many articles:

Add another concept to your searching using the Boolean operator 'AND'.
Add Limits (e.g. Peer Reviewed, Date of Publication, Language, Publication Type, etc.).
Check your Boolean logic. Are you using 'OR' when you should be using 'AND'?
When Keyword searching, try searching just in the Title field. This is not recommended for all searches, as you will eliminate relevant articles that don't have those keywords in the title, but it will likely find a few articles to get you started.
If you're searching in a database that covers all subjects (e.g. Academic Search Elite, Web of Knowledge), look for a database that is subject specific.