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Sociology Resources

Recommended resources for sociology students and faculty

Searching Effectively

Basic Search Tips

Unlike Google, many library databases are unable to interpret complete sentences in the form of a question so you will likely need to distill your topic down to its basic elements. These elements are your keywords.

Example Topic: How are women discriminated against in the workplace?

Useful keywords that can be extracted from this topic include women, discrimination, and work(place). You may also want to consider synonyms of your keywords such as, in this case, bias or inequality for "discrimination", and jobs or employment for "workplace".

Nearly all library databases and search tools use some form of subject headings to classify content for greater findability and consistency. Very often these headings also act as links to related material within the databases.

Once you have identified several particularly relevant articles from a database, try clicking on the subject headings to find more directly relevant content.

The CRAAP Test is a quick and easy tool for evaluating the usefulness of the sources you have found.

  • Currency - the timeliness of the information
  • Relevance - the importance of the information for your needs
  • Authority - the source of the information
  • Accuracy - The reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the content
  • Purpose - The reason the information exists

Click on the link below for an interactive worksheet that helps you evaluate your sources.

Advanced Search Tips

Try using the AND connector between your keywords to reduce the amount of results to those containing both keywords, not just one or the other.

Try using the OR connector between your keywords to increase the amount of results to those containing either one or both of your keywords.

If your keywords are returning mostly irrelevant results, try inserting phrases in QUOTES in your search which will limit your results to those which include those exact words in that exact order.

Many databases may also begin to autofill your phrase as you type. Selecting these usually works in the same manner as searching with quotation marks.