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Social Ecology 194W - Winter 2007 |
Julia Gelfand (949) 824-4971 |
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Brian Williams Langson Library 107 (949) 824-0473 |
OBJECTIVE: To conduct a relevant literature review to support your research paper topic based on observation and interview techniques, demonstrating an understanding of empirical data and social science methodology.
Nuts & bolts: The library homepage or website is your point of departure and should answer questions such as:
This handout provides tips and direction on:
Background research: books
Books can provide:
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 10 UC campuses. Many of our article databases link to MELVYL (via UCeLinks) 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. You may find it easier to use ANTPAC in order to determine the availability of a particular article at UCI -- in either print or online format -- than MELVYL. Learn to search MELVYL using one of the following online tutorials
If
you need materials that you find are NOT available at UCI, you can use Interlibrary
Loan (ILL). Plan ahead for this --
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Writing & Research Manuals |
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Publication
Manual of the American Psychological Association 5th ed, at all Reference Desks - BF 76.7 P8 2001 |
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Citing electronic sources - an
APA brief guide |
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Finding academic articles
For this class, most of your research is taking place outside of the library, where you will be gathering data to analyze. Your goal in the library is not to find exact studies that replicate yours, but rather to find supporting research on one or more of the issues you are discussing for your research paper.
To get started:
Sample record from PsycINFO
Results of a search for:
(going out, dating or
courtship) and college students
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Title:Dating and commitment choices as a function of
ethnicity among American colege students in California |
Notice that our search terms (dating and college students) appear in bold type. But under "Descriptors," the word used for dating is "Social Dating" (seen above in red). Adding this term to our search should expand our results and sharpen the relevance in retrieval.
Learn more about finding journal articles in this online tutorial
Getting there:
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, academic source 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.
You can also consider
saving retrieved citations to QuikBib,
where you can format in one of 8 preferred bibliographic styles such as APA,
etc or to RefWorks so that you can
build a bibliography and recall the citations again when you write, and they
too can be formatted as you prefer. For
additional information about the web-based bibliographic management tool,
RefWorks consult the descriptive
page
You can search the
CSA databases (Psychology, Social Service, ERIC, Environmental Science &
Pollution Management and Sociological Abstracts) concurrently or you can search
them independently. Click on the active Specific
Databases link and select the databases you want and then Continue to
search.
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SUBJECT |
DATABASE |
SEARCH TIPS |
WORK WITH RESULTS |
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General/multidisciplinary
A good starting point
for research on many topics/contexts
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Expanded Academic ASAP: Citations and full-text magazine, newspaper and journal articles from the arts and humanities to social sciences, science and technology.
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Psychology Good database for all aspects of psychology and social behavior QUICK DEMO OF PSYCINFO -- OPEN WITH INTERNET EXPLORER ONLY |
PsycINFO: (CSA) International literature in
psychology and related disciplines. The sources include over 1,400 professional
journals, chapters, books, reports, theses and dissertations, published
internationally. Related to this database is PsycARTICLES, the full-text coverage of journals issued by the American Psychological Association (APA) |
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Social Services Good database if the cultural context you are exploring is in the social or human services (counseling, e.g.)
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Social Services Abstracts: (CSA) 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. |
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Education
Good database if the cultural context you are exploring is in primary, secondary or higher education
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ERIC: (CSA) Education-related literature, both journal articles and coverage of conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs. |
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Sociology
Good for study of
structure of organizations
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Sociological Abstracts: (CSA) 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. Social Sciences Index (Wilson) |
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Business/Public
Policy Particularly strong coverage of organizational psychology and workplace environments
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Business Source Premier: Worldwide business periodicals for information on advertising, marketing, economics, human resources, finance, taxation, computers, and more. Also, information on 60,000+ companies. |
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Interdisciplinary
coverage |
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Environmental Sciences |
Environmental Science & Pollution Management: (CSA) International coverage of environmental sciences, risk assessment, and related topics |
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Finding Full-Text Content - all these databases will contain UC eLinks taking you to the full-text content via a publishing partner or to holdings in ANTPAC or MELVYL. If the UCI Libraries do not have the article you need, please use MELVYL REQUEST to submit the ILL request from another campus. |
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Additional databases may be relevant and useful and are found on E-Resources Locator, or on the Subject Guides for Social Ecology or on Databases to get you started… |
HINTS:
1. You may want to review the outline format on your syllabus before you begin your paper - regardless of your topic you will want to write from an outline
a. Purpose
b. Hypothesis
c. Methodology
d. Findings
e. Literature Review - summary
f. Conclusions - can you accept or reject hypothesis
2. Evaluating information - there are several criteria you will want to employ:
a. Audience
b. Authority
c. Purpose
d. Objectivity
e. Currency
f. Coverage
g. Accuracy
h. Relevancy
3. Citing your sources - use APA format - for additional information you may want to consult the following resources that accompany the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed. - http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html or http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
4. Learn to use RefWorks - bibliographic management software where you can consistently format your references - this is a web-based, free product that each student registers for and uses in conjunction with MS Word. Consult http://www.lib.uci.edu/bms/refworks.html for additional information. An immediate one-time registration is available at https://www.refworks.com/Refworks/login.asp?WNCLang=false It is particularly easy to use from any of the CSA databases. There will be a class on how to use RefWorks on Thursday, March 1 here in the TEC from 1-3
5. You have many options for getting research assistance from the UCI Libraries. You can:
a. Contact Liaison Librarians for an appointment or to ask for assistance.
b. Use Ask a Librarian for eMail, Live CHAT Reference, or to schedule a research consultation