Sociology: Find Articles

What you search is highly dictated by your research topic. Coming up with keywords is often one of the hardest parts of research. If you need help, please ask!

• You can narrow your search by adding a country, group, or tribal affiliation. For example, you could search for "politics and United States".
• You can add a keyword like ethnography if you are looking for a particular type of article.
• Remember in sociological research that some databases, particularly those that search historical documents may use keywords that are outdated or distasteful to contemporary researchers. For example, searching for "African American" in some newspaper databases may not turn up much material, but searching for "Negro" will, simply because of the language that is used in the article.
• Remember also in sociological research that spelling and word usage changes over time. A search for "Navajo" may miss articles that use the spelling "Navaho." Likewise, when searching for a term like "religion" consider using other words such as "cosmology", "ritual", "myth" -- these words may uncover some great material that you might miss by searching only for one term.

As you can see, there's a lot of databases to choose from. Your research topic will dictate which ones are the best; ask a librarian to help suggest which ones!

If you would like to see a full list of the journal titles to which the Library subscribes, that is available on the link below: