Social Ecology 195 Julia Gelfand

Field Studies - Goldberg Science Library 228

Summer Session II 2006 jgelfand@uci.edu

949-824-4971

The writing assignments for this section of Field Studies will encourage you to use a variety of information resources. This handout will provide some hints about different approaches and some tools, resources and strategies you can employ to make the learning experience more integrated with your social ecology curriculum. The following criteria will help you create the structure you need to be successful.

• Choose a topic that supports your need to conduct research for a term paper on a topic related to your Field Studies experience.
• Remember what "empirical" means & that it can be used as a qualifier in the PsycINFO database so that you search for studies that employ an empirical methodology containing data. In other databases, you may describe your topic and add empirical or data intensive or data driven or datasets as additional keywords in the search strategy
• The five cited references should be from 1996 or later
• Cited literature should be from scholarly sources (peer reviewed, academic, research-based)

1. Background on Research Paper - requires a literature review - this can be accomplished in several ways, including choosing an appropriate topic and getting it approved for starters. Use the Library Homepage as a point of departure for:

· Databases - access to journal literature, conference proceedings, some books and book chapters and dissertations, from the scholarly, trade and a variety of information sources by subject or keyword - appropriate examples include those listed on the Subject Guides prepared for each Department in the School of Social Ecology and found on the front page of the Library Homepage.

o PsycINFO - can easily find empirical studies by Methodology - a descriptive guide on how to search the database is available

o Child Development and Adolescent Studies Abstracts

o Sociological Abstracts

o Social Services Abstracts

o Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management

o Web of Science

o Business Source Premier

o Expanded Academic ASAP

o Criminal Justice Abstracts

o Lexis Nexis Academic Universe - for News & Legal Resources

o Westlaw Campus - a resource for legal content, especially cases and statutes

o LegalTrac - legal content but does not contain as much fulltext as LexisNexis or Westlaw

o Hein Online - for law reviews - enter the citation in this database for fulltext from volume #1 to last complete year

o many others - contact librarians for additional assistance

· Google Scholar -

· Other web resources

o Community Toolkit

· Citation Sources - Consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5^th ed., 2001 found at all UCI Library Reference Desks at BF 76.7 P83 2001 or online citation information

· Bibliographic Management Services - a good way to retain citations and apply them in your writing - specifically consider learning how to use Ref Works if you have not done so yet

· Hints for Success

o Read assignment carefully

o Write from an outline - then realize information gaps to fill

o Identify context

o Find appropriate studies and research - one way is to search PsycINFO and restrict the Methodology to "Empirical Studies" to see studies done on your topic or that match your search query

o Don't procrastinate

Additional Information - consider some of the following resources:

• Contact Liaison Librarian (I will be away from August 16-Sept 6 - please rely upon colleagues at the Reference Desk or use

• Ask a Librarian for eMail, LiveCHAT reference services, or to schedule a Research Consultation, visit Reference Desk