REVIEWING SCHOLARLY LITERATURE FOR YOUR QUALITATIVE PAPER ASSIGNMENT

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REVIEWING SCHOLARLY LITERATURE FOR YOUR
QUALITATIVE PAPER ASSIGNMENT

• Sociology 315
• October 15 and 16, 2007
• Grant Kayler
• UofA Libraries
• grant.kayler_at_ualberta.ca

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THINGS TO REMEMBER

• HELP IS AVAILABLE In person at the Rutherford
  Library Reference Desk Online FAQ, Live Help
  (chat), IM, e-mail
• Need books? Search the Library Catalogue
• Need articles? Search DATABASES for articles and
  book chapters
• N.B. CATALOGUE provides access to the title of a
  periodical (e.g. American journal of Sociology)
  but not to the titles of individual articles in
  the periodicalneed a DATABASE for that
• Do your research earlynot everything is on the
  UofA campus (BARD, other NEOS libraries,
  interlibrary loan)

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Scholarly Literature What is it?

• Written by experts in the field, usually
  associated with a postsecondary institution or
  academic/research body results of a research
  process includes bibliography of references on
  which the content is based different from
  popular magazines or trade literature
• Examples journal articles, books, conference
  proceedings/reports, encyclopedias dictionaries

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Graphic presentation courtesy of John Holmes,
Odegaard Undergraduate Library, University of
Washington
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Peer Reviewed / Refereed Journals

• Journals that review submissions by an author
  their scholarly work or research by other
  experts in the field, e.g. an editorial board,
  prior to publication blind review process
• How to identify a peer reviewed journal
• Some databases let you limit your search to
  articles in peer reviewed journals, e.g.
  Sociological Abstracts, SocINDEX with Full Text,,
  Sociological Collection, Social Sciences Full
  Text, CBCA
• If not, Ulrichs International Periodical
  Directory (a database) tells you whether journal
  is scholarly/peer reviewed

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Searching TIPS

• Boolean Searches
• and alcoholism and gender
• or yoga or pilates or aerobics
• not bulimia not anorexia
• Phrase Searches
• Binge drinking
• sometimes binge drinking

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More Tips

• Truncation
• Tattoo tattoos, tattooed, tattooer, tattooee
• symbol can vary (e.g. in Lib. Cat.)
• Wildcards
• wom?n women or woman

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Searching TipsA bit more complex

• Nesting combine and and or in a single
  search, e.g. (recreation or leisure) and
  (multicultural or divers)
• Proximity terms near each other, e.g. sport
  within 5 cultur (again, varies with database
  (e.g. N5) check tips/help)

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Moving from topic to search format

• Analyze your topic
• Break it into concepts/keywords think of
  synonyms for words used to describe topic
• Think about the relationship between concepts
• Try limiting your search, e.g. by date, language,
  publication type, peer reviewed
• Try your search against different databases, or
  modify your search strategy, to see if you get
  different/better results

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Find the concepts/keywords in this research
question

• Do Canadian men and women experience work-life
  balance in different ways?

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Do Canadian men and women experience work-life
balance in different ways?
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SEARCH STRATEGY

• (sex difference or gender difference or (men
  and wom?n)) and (work life balance or work
  leisure balance) and (canada or canadian)

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From searching to finding full text online or
print sources

• Some databases contain the full-text of some or
  all of the articles (pdf or html), e.g. SocINDEX
  with Full Text, Sociological Collection, SAGE
  Full Text, Social Sciences Full Text
• Other databases provid citations or abstracts,
  e.g. Sociological Abstracts, Social Science
  Citation Index, will link you to the fulltext
  through the Get It button -
  links you to the full text if available in
  another database, or to print sources, e.g. the
  Libraries Catalogue, Interlibrary Loan, etc.

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KEY DATABASES FOR SOCIOLOGY

• Sociological Abstracts
• Social Sciences Full Text
• Sage Full Text
• Social Science Citation Index (part of Web of
  Science, permits cited ref searching)
• CBCA Reference