Library Research Guide for Sociology Classes

Print resources

Accessible through the College of the Canyons Web site,  the online catalog will indicate what we own and where it is located in the collection.  To find resources on sociology you may want to start by opening the online catalog and selecting the subject search option. After you type in "Sociology” as a subject you will see a link to a listing of 66 titles as well as links to subject matter related to sociology, such as "Communication" and "Mass society".   The online catalog will provide you with the following information: the call number of the material, the type of material (i.e. book, video recording, DVD, pamphlet), any special location for the item (reserve room, media reserves, reference, etc.) and will tell you whether or not the item is available.   

Some topics may be related to sociology but may overlap with other social sciences. An example would be social deviance, which is studied by psychologists as well as sociologists. If you are looking for materials on this topic you may want to try typing in "Deviant behavior" as a subject term. 

Electronic resources

When you are conducting serious research online, you may want to take advantage of the specialized information that may be found in the Library’s subscription databases. All of the databases may be used at any computer lab on campus and may be accessed at your home computer by obtaining passwords from a librarian.

• ProQuest Direct is a database consisting of citations, abstracts and in many cases full-text articles from over ten thousand publications, including magazines, newspapers and academic journals. The articles may be printed out, downloaded to a diskette, or emailed to your personal account.  You may want to use the Social Science module of the database for the most focused searches.  This will allow you to retrieve articles from publications in the areas of sociology, political science, and criminal justice.  You have different options for searching, including  the "Basic Search" for more simple searching and the "Advanced Search", which allows you to combine different types of searchable fields together. You also have the option of viewing only publications that contain articles that are Peer reviewed. This means that all of the articles must go through a process of approval by a board consisting of academic researchers.

• Issues and Controversies is a database that focuses on information regarding heavily debated contemporary political and social issues. Each topic is treated in an unbiased manner that presents different sides of the issue at hand. This database may help you find very valuable statistics and historical background on your topic.

• CQ Researcher is a highly-respected, very useful current-events resource that contains information on topics ranging from social issues to politics, education, and the environment. The coverage is very in-depth and includes a chronology of the topic and pro and con arguments. 

When researching topics in sociology using the "free" Internet, you will be confronted with a barrage of Web sites that vary greatly in quality and objectivity. When using the numerous subject guides and search engines you have at your disposal, it is important to recognize the qualitative differences between them:

General subject guides such as those on portals like Yahoo tend to organize Web sites and pages into a hierarchical structure, dividing the information into categories and subcategories. To find information on sociology select the "Social Science" category, then select the "Sociology" subcategory. From here you may select more specific topics like "Criminology." You may then want to perform a search for a topic that falls into that category, such as "Social deviance."  Remember that the Web pages and sites that are featured on these guides run the range from commercial sites to academic sites, personal Web pages to Web pages created by government officials. Yahoo’s indexes generally make no distinction between them, and you need to closely examine the Web pages that you retrieve to determine whether or not the creator of the page is an authority on the topic. However, if you want to do more detailed searching (for example, if you only want to retrieve Web sites and pages created by academic institution) you will need to utilize a real search engine like Google .  Search engines utilize programs called robots or spiders to create huge indexes consisting of millions of Web pages. On a search engine you have the capability to restrict your findings by domain name (.edu, .com, .gov), language,  and exact date of creation. 

 One way of separating the wheat from the chaff is by viewing  guides to sociology Web sites that have been selected for quality by experts in the field..   An example of this is  WCSU List: Sociology Internet Resources. The site is maintained by Western Connecticut State University Department of Social Sciences and contains links to information in a number of different subdivisions of sociology, including criminology and social theory. 

Please see a librarian regarding passwords for the above-mentioned databases or if you have any questions regarding the information covered in this research guide.  To learn about how to properly cite the information found in both print and electronic resources, please see the MLA or APA research guides.

A word about plagiarism: As a College of the Canyons student you are responsible for holding yourself to the accepted standards of ethics and responsibility. If is very important to understand plagiarism is never acceptable. Current resources exist on the Web that allow instructors to check any text that may be considered questionable. To see an example of such a resource please see Plagiarism.org. You are also advised to have a look at attorney Ronald B. Standler's Web site Plagiarism in Colleges in USA. Legal issues, ethical issues and case studies are discussed.  

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