Resources for Background Information
Subject encyclopedias are great for:
- locating authoritative, peer-reviewed, high quality information
- choosing a topic
- gaining background information quickly (major ideas, theories, events, people)
- identifying variant spellings, vocabulary, terminology
- finding a bibliography (list of important, selected references for further reading)
- Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology OnlineBrings together 1800 specially commissioned entries written and edited by an international team of the world's best scholars and teachers. Contains brief and more detailed articles on both classical sociology and contemporary developments in the field, and introductions to sociological theories and research that have developed outside of the United States and Western Europe. The online version provides online additions three times a year, extending and updating coverage and functionality.
- Encyclopedia of Social Networks byThis two-volume encyclopedia provides a thorough introduction to the wide-ranging, fast-developing field of social networking, a much-needed resource at a time when new social networks or “communities” seem to spring up on the internet every day.
- Encyclopedia of Social Network Analysis and Mining byThe Encyclopedia of Social Network Analysis and Mining (ESNAM) is the first major reference work to integrate fundamental concepts and research directions in the areas of social networks and applications to data mining.
Olin & Uris Libraries
Sociology Databases
- Sociology Source UltimateAn expanded version of SocINDEX, including greater coverage of peer-reviewed journals, international resources and open access titles. Provides citations and direct links to the texts of journal articles, book chapters and conference proceedings, some as far back as 1880. Comprehensive coverage encompassing sub-disciplines and related areas of the social sciences, including labor, crime, demography, economic sociology, immigration, ethnic, racial and gender studies, family, political sociology, religion, development, social psychology, social structure, social work, socio-cultural anthropology, social history, theory, methodology, and more.”
- Sociological AbstractsAbstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Provides citations from 1963 to the present, and abstracts since 1974, to journal articles, conference papers, books, and dissertations. Subjects covered include community development, culture and social structure, demography and human biology, environmental interactions, family and social welfare, health and medicine and law, religion and science, social psychology and group interactions, welfare services, and women's studies.
Relevant Journals
- American Sociological ReviewAmerican Sociological Review (ASR), the ASA's flagship journal, was founded in 1936 with the mission to publish original works of interest to the discipline of sociology in general, new theoretical developments, results of research that advance understanding of fundamental social processes, and important methodological innovations.
- Annual Review of SociologyTopics covered in the journal include major theoretical and methodological developments as well as current research in the major subfields. Reviews typically cover social processes, institutions and culture, organizations, political and economic sociology, stratification, demography, urban sociology, social policy, historical sociology, and major developments in sociology in other regions of the world.
- Social NetworksSocial Networks provides a common forum for representatives of anthropology, sociology, history, social psychology, political science, human geography, biology, economics, communications science and other disciplines who share an interest in the study of the empirical structure of social relations and associations that may be expressed in network form.
Library Catalog Searches - Subject Headings
- Social networks
- Social networks > Cross-cultural studies
- Social networks > Economic aspects
- Social networks > Health aspects.
- Social networks > History
- Social networks > Political aspects
- Social networks > Psychological aspects
- Social networks AND Trust.
- Social networks AND Collective action
- Social networks broader term: Interpersonal relations;
- Social networks narrower terms: Business networks; Online social networks; Policy networks
- Equality. Use this as the subject heading. Try also "inequality" for all field searches.
Other Helpful Research Guides
Requesting Library Items
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If someone else has taken out the journal issue you need...
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