From your paper assignment:
[...Seek] out and briefly review in the paper how this particular problem has been treated by both the scholarly literature and the mainstream and alternative media [...]. The work you do to collect and look at this information should be extensive, but the actual review section of the paper should be a brief synthesis (of the “Scholars have tended to……while the media has tended to…..” variety).
Some of your topics will have an enormous amount of scholarly and media materials to wade through, in which case you should let your narrow focus [...] guide which materials to focus on. You are also advised to seek out good review essays (Annual Review of Sociology, Congressional Quarterly Researcher as a couple suggestions), reading abstracts of lots of articles and then looking at the bibliographies of the most relevant ones, and reading book reviews in scholarly journals of the most relevant books in order to make this reasonable.
Some of your topics on the other hand will not have much scholarly or media materials to wade through at all. In these instances, you should collect everything you can and in the paper highlight what those materials have to say and how it does or does not relate to your narrow focus relevant to course insights.
You must cite all of your sources, both scholarly and non-scholarly [in any citation format] and include a bibliography.
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About your research paper:
Getting background information:
Annual review of sociology
Holdings:
(Bryn Mawr College) Available from 1975-present.
(Haverford College) Available from 1975-present.
(Swarthmore College) Available from 1975-present.
Publisher: Palo Alto, Calif. : Annual Reviews Inc.,
"Annual Reviews critically reviews the most significant primary research literature to guide you to the principal contributions of the field and help you keep up to date in your area of research." - from FAQ
CQ researcher
Holdings:
(Bryn Mawr College) Available from 1991-present.
(Haverford College) Available from 1991-present.
(Swarthmore College) Available from 1991-present.
Publisher: Washington, D.C. : Congressional Quarterly, Inc.
Offers full-text reports on current and controversial world issues. Topics include social, environmental, health, education, science and technology issues. Covers 1991-present.
Scholarly journal articles:
Sociological abstracts
Holdings:
1963-
Publisher: Bethesda, Md. : Cambridge Scientific Abstracts,
Provider: CSA
Indexes the literature of sociology and related fields in the social and behavioral sciences. Includes journal articles, reviews, case studies, conference papers, and dissertations. International in scope. 1963 to the present.
ProQuest Research Library
Provider: ProQuest
For all subjects. Provides abstracts and many full-text articles from 1,700 scholarly and popular periodicals across disciplines. 1971 through the present.
JSTOR
Full text of most of the top journals in Sociology and many other fields. Coverage is from the inception of the journal through three to five years before today.
Worldwide political science abstracts
Provider: CSA
Provides citations and abstracts of journals in political science and related fields including international relations, law, and public administration/policy. Covers 1975-present.
PAIS international
Provider: CSA
Provides abstracts of journal articles, books, government documents, statistical compilations, and reports from various agencies. Areas covered include political, economic, social and public policy issues. Covers 1972-present.
ERIC
Provider: CSA
Provides abstracts to journal articles and ERIC Digest records on all aspects of education. Many digest records are in full-text. Covers 1966-present.
Mainstream media:
ProQuest Research Library
Provider: ProQuest
After doing a search for your topic, select the MAGAZINES tab to see articles from popular periodicals.
Readers' guide retrospective
Provides indexing of general-interest periodicals published in the United States from 1890-1982.
LexisNexis academic
Provider: LN
Includes hundreds of newspapers and magazines -- foreign, domestic and local -- dating back to the 1980s; includes all types of articles, from news to reviews to Opinion/Editorial and letters to the editor.
For a more powerful search, click Power Search in the upper-left hand corner of the page, then use the Sources drop-down if you wish to narrow your source list. Remember to change the coverage dates.
For a more powerful search, click Power Search in the upper-left hand corner of the page, then use the Sources drop-down if you wish to narrow your source list. Remember to change the coverage dates.
Access world news
Provider: NewsBank
Full-text articles from the electronic editions of more than 700 newspapers around the globe. Includes the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1981 to the present.
The New York times on the Web
Holdings:
(Bryn Mawr College) Available from 1851-present.
(Haverford College) Available from 1851-present.
(Swarthmore College) Available from 1851-present.
Publisher: [New York, N.Y.] : New York Times.
Alternative press:
Alternative press index
Provides abstracts to alternative news sources including radical and left journals, newspapers and magazines. Coverage is international and interdisciplinary. Covers 1991- present. Alternative Press Index Archive, a companion database covers 1969-1990.
GenderWatch
Offers full-text access to scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, books, conference proceedings, government and non-governmental organization reports. Materials focus on how gender impacts a broad spectrum of subject areas. Covers 1970-present.
Ethnic newswatch
Offers full-text articles from newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. Covers 1990-present.
Book Reviews:
Sociological abstracts
Holdings:
1963-
Publisher: Bethesda, Md. : Cambridge Scientific Abstracts,
Provider: CSA
Sociological Abstracts contains almost 200,00 book reviews! However, the entries in the database do not include abstracts or subject headings, so you need to know the book's title or author, or search for keywords that can be found in those fields.
To limit your search to book reviews, type "book review" in the Publication Type box (last box on the screen). Enter your search terms as KEYWORDS. Do not combine book review searches with thesaurus searches.
To limit your search to book reviews, type "book review" in the Publication Type box (last box on the screen). Enter your search terms as KEYWORDS. Do not combine book review searches with thesaurus searches.
Book review index
Provider: Gale
A comprehensive online guide to book reviews with over five million review citations from thousands of publications. Covers 1965-present.
Trico library guide to finding book reviews
This page provides links to resources for finding scholarly and other book reviews, for recent boooks as well as older books.
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