Social Ecology 195: (Field Study) Winter 2003

Social Ecology 195 - Winter 2003
Field Study
Library Research Workshop

Judy Ruttenberg
Langson Library 143
jruttenb@uci.edu
(949) 824-7021

OBJECTIVE: To learn to use the library to complete your literature review, finding references to scientific journal articles, legal case studies, and other academic sources.

Nuts & bolts: The library web site http://www.lib.uci.edu answers questions such as:

When is the building open?
What are the hours of the reference desk?
Where do I access course reserves?
Borrow books?
Chat with a librarian online?
How can I connect to library databases by from home?
There are also subject guides to help get you started in a particular discipline. See the subject guides for Criminology, Law and Society; Environmental Analysis & Design; Psychology & Social Behavior; and Urban & Regional Planning for additional resources to supplement this course guide.

This page provides tips on:

Identifying information resources on a particular topic
Using library databases to find research articles on a topic
Using UC-elinks or ANTPAC to locate needed materials in the UCI Libraries and verify our holdings

Background research: books

Books can provide:

An overview of your topic
Bibliographies and additional references to key literature

ANTPAC is UC Irvine's online library catalog -- the source to determine whether a book, video, government document or journal is available at UCI. Increasingly, as journals and documents become available electronically, ANTPAC includes links to the full-text of the item on the Internet.

Learn to search ANTPAC using this online tutorial

MELVYL is the combined online catalog for all of the UC campuses. Many of our article databases link to MELVYL in order to tell you whether the book or journal you need is available at UCI or other UC campuses. However, ANTPAC is a more current source of this information than MELVYL.

If you need materials that you find are NOT available at UCI, you can use Interlibrary Loan.

Finding academic articles for your literature review

To get started:

Determine your research question
Develop a list of keywords or phrases that reflect your research question
Decide where you are going to look for information (see table, below)
Start with specific concepts (as keywords) but be prepared to either generalize and broaden your search (if you don't find research on your exact context)
When you find a good article on your topic in an article database, analyze the subject headings or descriptors in the record to add words to or refine your search terms

Learn more about finding journal articles in this online tutorial

Getting there:

From the library homepage http://www.lib.uci.edu click on Article Databases.
From the alphabetical list, choose one of the following, depending on your topic. (Databases shaded gray all share the same interface: Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA). NOTE: You can search more than one CSA database at the same time: Select one of the CSA databases you want to search, then choose "Change Subject Area" in the upper right corner of the screen. Select "Social Sciences" and then either Advanced or Quick Search. Select the databases you want to include in your search.)

Most of the databases below contain scholarly and academic articles only. However -- some also contain popular magazines (such as Newsweek) or trade publications (such as Business Week). In such cases, I've included in "search tips" ways to restrict your output to only scholarly material.

Under "Work with Results," below, there are links to pages in the UCI Libraries' online tutorials on specific aspects of working with UC-elinks and ANTPAC to determine whether UCI has a particular journal you need, based on an article citation. These links open in new windows -- simply close them using the X in the upper right-hand corner of your screen to return to this handout.

Suggested online databases for Social Ecology 195

SUBJECT	DATABASE	SEARCH TIPS	WORK WITH RESULTS
General/multidisciplinary A good starting point for research on many topics/contexts	Expanded Academic ASAP: citations and full-text magazine, newspaper and journal articles from the arts and humanities to social sciences, science and technology.	Search by broad subject and narrow by subdivision (e.g. innovations, research, case studies) or search by keyword Limit to "refereed" publications to retrieve only academic and scholarly material	Print, save or e-mail full-text or citations Use UC-elinks to connect to full-text or the MELVYL catalog to view UCI holdings OR Use ANTPAC to look up journal titles (includes links to electronic journals)
General/multidisciplinary	Web of Science (Social Sciences Citation Index): In addition to providing information on journal articles by keyword, author name, or journal title, a citation index makes it possible to identify articles that cite (make reference to) an earlier author or article. Some links to full-text.	Choose "full search" and depending on your topic, SSCI and/or SCI, and date range Use "general search" to find articles by topic Use "find related records" to find articles with similar footnotes	Print, save or e-mail full-text or citations Use UC-elinks to connect to full-text or the MELVYL catalog to view UCI holdings OR Use ANTPAC to look up journal titles (includes links to electronic journals)
Psychology Good database for all aspects of psychology and social behavior QUICK DEMO OF PSYCINFO -- OPEN WITH INTERNET EXPLORER ONLY	PsycINFO: International literature in psychology and related disciplines. The sources include over 1,400 professional journals, chapters, books, reports, theses and dissertations, published internationally.	Search by keyword, and then refine your search using descriptors Use Advanced Search and limit your search to journal articles only Use the cited references of recent articles to find additional relevant materials Browse the publication type index to find additional search parameters (e.g. publication type = empirical study or literature review	Tag/mark multiple records and print/save/e-mail results Use UC-elinks to connect to full-text or the MELVYL catalog to view UCI holdings OR Use ANTPAC to look up journal titles (includes links to electronic journals)
Social Services Good database if the cultural context you are exploring is in the social or human services (counseling, e.g.)	Social Services Abstracts: abstracts of current research on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development. Journal articles, dissertations, and citations to book reviews.	Search by keyword, and then refine your search using descriptors Use Advanced Search and limit your search to journal articles only	Tag/mark multiple records and print/save/e-mail results Use UC-elinks to connect to full-text or the MELVYL catalog to view UCI holdings OR Use ANTPAC to look up journal titles (includes links to electronic journals)
Education Good database if the cultural context you are exploring is in primary, secondary or higher education	ERIC: Education-related literature, both journal articles and coverage of conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs.	Search by keyword, and then refine your search using descriptors Use Advanced Search and limit your search to journal articles only (if you don't do this, you will retrieve ERIC documents, which are generally unpublished reports, not scholarly articles)	Tag/mark multiple records and print/save/e-mail results Use UC-elinks to connect to full-text or the MELVYL catalog to view UCI holdings OR Use ANTPAC to look up journal titles (includes links to electronic journals)
Sociology good for study of structure of organizations	Sociological Abstracts: international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Journal articles, book reviews, abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. See also: ASSIA	Search by keyword, and then refine your search using descriptors Use Advanced Search and limit your search to journal articles only	Tag/mark multiple records and print/save/e-mail results Use UC-elinks to connect to full-text or the MELVYL catalog to view UCI holdings OR Use ANTPAC to look up journal titles (includes links to electronic journals)
Law	LegalTrac: Citations to and some full-text of articles in all major law reviews, law journals, specialty law and bar association journals, and legal newspapers. Included are articles on Federal and State Cases, Laws and Regulations, Legal Practice, and Taxation.	Search by broad subject and narrow by subdivision, or search by keyword. See also related topics.	Tag/mark multiple records and print/save/e-mail results Use ANTPAC to look up journal titles (includes links to electronic journals)
Law	Lexis-Nexis Academic: Legal newsletters & newspapers, full-text law review articles. Also includes full-text cases, state and federal codes, and regulations.	For law reviews, Choose unique keywords (names of parties in cases, statutes, e.g.) and search in "At Least 3." The default date is "previous six months" -- you can change this. ! is a place holder for missing letters -- so constitution! will also pick up constitutional or constitutionality Use the Expanded List tab to see your search word/s in context	You can reformat the article to print (in the library, printing is $0.12/page with a print card) or e-mail the article to yourself (you can e-mail multiple citations at one time, but only one full-text article at a time)
Criminal Justice	National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Abstracts Database: Summaries of more than 170,000 criminal justice publications, including Federal, State, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, and unpublished research.	Search keywords in subject (searches 1-2 sentence annotation & subject terms) Put exact phrases in quotes Put the word "journal" in as a keyword to limit to periodicals	Use ANTPAC to look up journal titles (includes links to electronic journals)
Business/Policy particularly strong coverage of organizational psychology and workplace environments	ABI/Inform: Worldwide business periodicals for information on advertising, marketing, economics, human resources, finance, taxation, computers, and more. Also, information on 60,000+ companies.	Search by keyword and then refine your search using subject terms Case studies is a subject term Limit to "peer reviewed" publications to retrieve only academic and scholarly material	Tag/mark multiple records and print/save/e-mail results Use UC-elinks to connect to full-text or the MELVYL catalog to view UCI holdings OR Use ANTPAC to look up journal titles (includes links to electronic journals)

Library research assistance and consultation

You have many options for getting research assistance from the UCI Libraries. You can:

Call or visit the Reference Desk at either the Main (949) 824-4976 or Science (949) 824-3705 Libraries (during certain weeks of the quarter, you can sign-up for a 30 minute research consultation appointment at either library)
Use Ask a Librarian EMAIL or LIVE
Follow up with Judy Ruttenberg directly (contact info above)