English 202A : Writing in the Social Sciences : Research Basics
Starting Points
- Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (online full-text)
- International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (online full-text)
- Gale Virtual Reference Library (online full-text)
Finding Books/Background
Use the CAT to find books owned at Penn State.
To locate books in other libraries, use WorldCat to find books in libraries all over the world.
Finding Articles
You will NOT find articles in the CAT, the Libraries' online catalog. Use one of the (selected) databases below to search for articles. [Note: this is not a complete list of databases to which the Penn State Libraries subscribe. To see the complete list, check the Libraries' Databases by Title (A-Z List)]
| General/Interdisciplinary databases | Selected Subject-Specific databases |
|---|---|
| America's Newspapers CentreDaily Times CQ Researcher LexisNexis Academic (News) Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center PolicyFile ProQuest |
Communication & Mass Media Complete Criminal Justice Abstracts ERIC (Education) PsycINFO Sociological Abstracts Worldwide Political Science Abstracts |
Searching Hints:
- See if there are other subject databases that are used in the discipline covered by your field.
- Use controlled vocabulary to focus your search. For example, to search for ethnographies in Sociological Abstracts limit to the subject ethnography (as opposed to searching ethnography as a keyword).
- Use the database's thesaurus to find other possible terms to use.
(e-reference)