MU Libraries Sourcepack

SOCIOLOGY 2950 - "Social Research"

Professor: Brian Colwell

Sociology Librarian: Nancy Turner Myers

What is a Literature Review?

 A literature review is a summary of previous research on a topic.  The purpose is to help you explain how the question that you’re investigating fits into the larger picture and why you’ve approached the topic the way you have.  It allows the reader to be brought up-to-date with the state of research on the topic and familiarizes her/him with contrasting perspectives and viewpoints on the topic. It helps you answer for the reader, “Who cares?” by laying out why it is important and worthy of study.  Link to more info:  http://info.wlu.edu/literature_review/literature_review.html

How do you find the Literature to review?

Before you delve into the Sociology or other professional journals, you might want to get a better understanding of your topic or phenomenon by doing some reading in more general or "popular" sources. This can help you to narrow or focus a topic and help you decide what might be an appropriate "lens" through which to view your topic.

From MU Libraries' Gateway page, click "Find a Database” then, "Popular Databases" 
 
Academic Search Premier  Index to major journals and magazines in all subject areas, so especially good for interdisciplinary topics. Many articles are full-text. Updated continually. Click on "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals" to limit search results to research articles.  Keep in mind that this database covers all subjects (besides Sociology, for example, Education, Political Science, Mass Media, and Psychology), so there is breadth but not depth in any one field. Here are two results from the same search on “single sex schools.” Note that one is a brief newspaper article and the other is an in-depth, 14 page research journal report.

BIG TEST FOR SINGLE-SEX PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Christian Science Monitor; 6/30/2006, Vol. 98 Issue 151, p8-8, 1/2p (editorial).

Single-sex classes in co-educational schools. Wills, Robin, Kilpatrick, Sue, Hutton, Biddy. British Journal of Sociology of Education; Jul2006, Vol. 27 Issue 3, p277-291, 14p.

CQ Researcher  Weekly report focusing on one issue in-depth.  Covers many topics in the news of interest to sociologists such as immigration, crime, education, gender, family and popular culture. 

Newspapers can be a good source of information, especially for an emerging phenomenon or local issues. Although usually brief, newspaper articles can often lead you to experts on a topic, advocacy groups, help identify key incidents and players and give you "clues" to follow up on in research journals.  From the MU libraries' Databases page, click on the "Newspapers" category for a listing of choices.

Contexts is the title of a new magazine published by the American Sociological Association that seeks to make sociology more accessible to the public. This can be a good place to look for ideas for your research paper.  You can see examples of  how sociologists are writing about popular issues and it's also a good source for visual sociology. 

Find Scholarly Articles from Sociology & other Disciplines' Journals

Sociological Abstracts is the database that covers the field of sociology in-depth, indexing over 1,800 journals. This is where you will find scholarly research articles written by sociologists. Similar to the MERLIN catalog, you can start by searching by key words and then see what the subject (descriptor) is to find more on the topic. You can also search by author or by a specific journal title and other elements. Here's an example of an article found by doing a key word search,   prison* and gang*.

Sundt, Jody L., Thomas C. Castellano, and Chad S. Briggs. 2008. "The Sociopolitical Context of Prison Violence and Its Control:  A Case Study of Supermax and Its Effect in Illinois."  The Prison Journal 88: 94-122. 

Link to this article: to see a model of how the research is presented, including the literature review, data and methods section, how statistical tables are displayed, discussion of results, etc. 

JSTOR  is another good database choice since it covers most of the core journals in Sociology and other disciplines and contains the full-text for all. Keep in mind that it is a journal archive and does not have the latest issues of any journal.  Use a database that is frequently updated such as Academic Search Premier (above), or Scopus, to search for articles from the last 3 - 5 years. 

If your topic is from a related discipline, such as Psychology, Social Work, Education, Political Science, or Health, find the relevant databases by starting at the "All Subjects" page from the MU Libraries Databases listings.

-Keep in mind that terminology can vary among databases depending on the discipline, e.g., one may use "women prisoners" whereas another uses "incarcerated females"

-Always look at the references listed at the end of an article or book chapter.  Often one good article can lead you to other similar articles, and help identify authors and classic works on your topic.

Find the Full-text of Journal Articles

If you're looking at results in one of the databases listed above, just click on the  button next to the article citation. The article will display if it's available electronically. If there is no online access, you'll be give the opportunity to look for a print copy in the MERLIN Catalog

If you have an article reference, but are not currently in a database, go to the MU Libraries' Gateway page and click on Find a Specific Article or Journal on the left side of the screen to enterFind it @ MU. Once in  you're given the opportunity to search for a specific article or journal title. If electronic coverage is not available, check the MERLIN Catalog to see if we have a print subscription to the journal. 

MU Libraries does not subscribe to all journal titles. If you find a journal article that you need, but cannot find the article using Find it @ MU, logon to https://ill.mul.missouri.edu/MUU/logon.html (our interlibrary loan service) and fill out a journal article request form (available on the Libraries Gateway page under "About the Libraries."  You will need to register the first time you use ILL@MU. Usually you will receive the article electronically via e-mail within a few days of placing your request.

Google Scholar is a sub-set of Google that provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.  If MU Libraries subscribe to or have access to the item online, you will be able to click to get the full text.

Find Library Books

• From the MU Libraries' homepage , choose the MERLIN Catalog. Type in words describing the topic you are researching. Once you have a list of hits, select one that looks on-target, then examine the subject headings for that item. Try clicking on that subject to retrieve similar items.
• If you do not find enough books on your topic to meet your needs, change your search to "ALL MERLIN." By doing so you will be checking the library holdings at UMSL, UMKC, UMR and MU all at once.
• Still not enough? Click on the MOBIUS Catalog button. This expands your search to about 50 additional libraries in our state network.
• Most books you find through MERLIN or MOBIUS are requestable online, simply by clicking the "Request Item" link. Books requested through MERLIN or MOBIUS normally take about three working days to arrive.
• You may request books not listed in MERLIN or MOBIUS via Book and Articles Request under About the Libraries on the MU Libraries' homepage .

Find Background Information

Here are three online encyclopedias/handbooks focused on sociological issues:

Encyclopedia of Social Theory   George Ritzer, editor

Encyclopedia of Sociology  Edgar F. Borgatta, editor-in-chief

21st Century Sociology  Clifton D. Bryant and Dennis L. Peck, co-editors

Using ASA Citation Style

Here are two sites that can help you with formatting your paper in ASA style:

American Sociological Association's site

Another useful site at Cal State

Need More Help?

Stop by, call (573-882-4581), or e-mail (ellisref@missouri.edu), Ellis Library Reference Desk, First Floor, South, Ellis Library.