1. Facts and Background Information
2. Finding Books
3. Finding Journal Articles
4. Handbooks and Guides
5. Statistics and Opinion Data
6. Selected Web Resources

Facts and Background Materials

• Dictionary of Sociology — PRINT, ELECTRONIC
  REF HM425 .D5735 2005
  3rd ed. of the Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, containing over 700 pages of information.
• Encyclopedia of Sociology — PRINT
  REF HM425 .E5 2000 v.1-5
•  Ethnographic Video Online — ELECTRONIC
  Including more than 800 video comprising over 500 hours of content, this still-growing collection includes streaming access to many of the most important anthropological and ethnographic films ever released. It includes documentaries, field recordings, interviews, and performances. Browsable by ethnographer, cultural group, geographic location, and subject the collection is enables the full text searching of each film’s transcript. Custom clips and playlists can be created and clips can be embedded into student work.
• International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences — PRINT, ELECTRONIC
  REF H41 .I58 2001
  Thousands of high quality scholarly articles including ones on political science, political philosophy, and political scientists, as well as on related disciplines such as sociology, psychology, law, and public policy.
• CredoReference – Social Science — ELECTRONIC
  Searcahable full text of a number of social science reference tools, many of which focus on sociology.
• Online Dictionary of the Social Sciences — WWW
  Fully searchable dictionary of 900+ social science terms from Canada’s Athabasca University.
• Oxford Reference Online — ELECTRONIC
  Provides online access to hundreds of dictionaries, handbooks, and other reference materials. Search the entire database, narrow your search by subject category, or explore individual reference tools. Categories of particular interest to history students are: History, Law, Politics & Social Sciences, and Military History.
• Sage Research Methods Online — ELECTRONIC
  SRMO is a powerful research methods tool, linking SAGE’s renowned research methods content with sophisticated search tools to help researcher answer their research methods questions like never before. The site contains 504 book titles, including the entire QASS (aka Little Green Book) series, 6 dictionaries, 4 encyclopedias and a Major Work containing journal articles. They also have a visual Methods Map tool and playlist functionality called SRMO Lists.

Finding Books

• Searching the catalog for books on sociology:
• Try a keyword search:
  gender and econom*
  urban youth

• Try an LC subject search:
  Sociology – History
  Sociology – Methodology

• Browse the 2nd FL stacks:
  Social Sciences (general) — H
  Sociology, social problems, etc. – HM through HS

Finding Articles

• Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA) — ELECTRONIC
  ASSIA indexes over 500 journals covering health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education.
• Annual Review of Sociology — ELECTRONIC
  Searchable full-text from vol. 1, 1975 to the present. A great tool for quickly surveying the state of the argument about a topic.
• Combined Retrospective Index Set to Journals in Sociology (C.R.I.S.) — PRINT
  Ref Z7164.S68 C2x – 6 vols.
  Index to sociology articles appearing in journals from 1895-1974.  Particularly good for doing in-depth research, this resource covers important materials that pre-date coverage in the electronic databases.
• Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text - ELECTRONIC
   Criminal Justice Abstracts contains comprehensive coverage of international journals, books, reports, dissertations and unpublished papers on criminology and related disciplines. This database now contains the full text of many important criminal justice journals.
• JSTOR — ELECTRONIC
  Searchable full text collection of journal articles on various subjects, including over thirty history journals.
• Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) — ELECTRONIC
  This database abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences. The database covers all aspects of the study of language including language learning and development, phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Includes coverage of sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. Documents indexed include journal articles, book reviews, books, book chapters, dissertations and working papers.
• Project MUSE — ELECTRONIC
  Multidisciplinary, full text, collection of scholarly journals with heavy coverage in the humanities and social sciences. MUSE now includes books from major university presses in selected fields which, at Drexel, includes Anthropology, History, Literature, Philosophy, Political Science and Policy. The books are in chapter-level PDF files with no DRM.
• PsycINFO — ELECTRONIC
  Indexes journal articles, dissertations, books, and more in the psychological and behavioral sciences. This is the primary journal index for Psychology.
• Social Sciences Citation Index (ISI) — ELECTRONIC
  Indexes journal literature in the social sciences, with significant coverage of sociology.
• Sociological Abstracts — ELECTRONIC
  Indexes and abstracts the literature in socology and related disciplines from an international selection of journals, serials, conference papers, books, and dissertations, from 1952 to the present.
• Urban Studies & Planning — ELECTRONIC
  A Sage full-text journal collection of 12 journals in planning, policy, and urban affairs.

Handbooks and Guides

• A Guide to Writing Sociology Papers — PRINT
  2nd FL – HM73.G78 1998
  Complete guide to writing sociology papers from UCLA’s Sociology Writing Group.
• Handbook of Sociology — PRINT
  Ref HM51.H249 1988
  Overview of theories, issues, and sub-disciplines within sociology.
• The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research — PRINT
  2nd FL – H62.H4255 2005
  Overview of qualitative research theory and methods in the social sciences.

Statistics and Opinion Data

• Historical Statistics of the United States— ELECTRONIC
  The standard source for quantitative facts about American history and life from the U.S. Census Bureau. Includes statistical data from 1619 to 2003, covering topics such as economics, government, demographics, religion, climate and more.   Data is downloadable and customizable.
• ICPSR — WWW
  ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data files for use with statistical software, such as SAS, SPSS, and Stata. Drexel is not a member institution of ICPSR, but many useful data sets are available for download to non-members.
• iPoll — ELECTRONIC
  Full text, searchable results from US nationwide public opinion polls. Organized at the question-level, and includes nearly a half million questions asked on national public opinion surveys since 1935 to the present.
• SimplyMap — ELECTRONIC
  A web-based mapping application that lets users create professional-quality thematic maps and reports using United States demographic, business, and marketing data. Data sources include the U.S. Census and Census projections.  Now able to plot point data. Free registration required.
• Statistical Abstract of the United States — PRINT, ELECTRONIC
  Hagerty Reference Desk HA202 .U51x 2008 
  Authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States. Sources of data include the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Economic Analysis, and many other Federal agencies and private organizations. Data has been collected since 1878.
• Statistical Resources on the Web– WWW
  A guide to various sources of statistical information (mostly governmental) available on the web. Produced by the University of Michigan’s Documents Center.
• U.S. Census Bureau — WWW
  Provides links to the most recent decennial census information and other data collected by the Bureau.  The American Factfinder section provides easy access to demographic data for particular communities.  The Data Access Tools section offers complete Census data sets to download and links to web-based and desktop tools for analysis and mapping.

Selected Web Resources

This list includes only a small fraction of useful web resources for this field. More web sites, which have undergone the same selection process, are available in my Pinboard tags on the right-hand side of this research guide.

• American Sociological Association — WWW
  Founded in 1905, this association is dedicated to advancing the field of sociology.
• Intute: Social Sciences: Sociology — ELECTRONIC
  Formerly SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway).  This British-based resource provides acts as a gateway providing links to high-quality resources related to sociology.
• Sociology Jeopardy — WWW
  Just for fun — a sociology vocabulary builder, based on the popular Jeopardy game.
• Sociology Online — WWW
  A UK-based sociology site, particularly good for beginning students.  Has links to introductory materials, “classic” sociology works, and quizzes and games related to sociology. The content is updated frequently even if the site’s design is not.
• SocioWeb– WWW
  An independent guide to sociological resources on the internet.  A good source for directories and university departments.
• WWW Virtual Library: Sociology — WWW
  A gateway to internet information related to sociology, including links to sociology departments worldwide and information on sociology software.