Research help

This guide will provide assistance with finding scholarly material to support the research paper assignment.  For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Sociology / Anthropology by email (moninder_lalli@sfu.ca) or Ask a librarian.

This guide was previously (prior to Sept 2022) published as SA 100.

Services for Distance Education students

Consult the guide Services for Distance Education students if you are off campus.

Essay  

Start Your Research Here - This page gives you an overview of the research process, or in other words how to find materials for your essay.

Sample research question

Formulate a question, such as: What is the effect of the Anti-terrorism Act and how is it used for national security?

Brainstorm about your question. E. g. Ask questions such as:

• Why was it introduced?
• When did it come into effect?
• How has it been applied by the police or Canada's Border Agency? 
• What is the effect on people?
• Has any particular group been the focus or target or has there been racial profiling?
• Has it affected people's rights?

Create a "Concept Map"

Identify key concepts and create a "Concept Map" (Concept Map Worksheet). 

This will assist you with combining keywords in a logical manner.    

Selected encyclopedias and handbooks

Get an overview of a topic by using encyclopedias, handbooks or textbook.  These types of resources identify key authors, theories and  important resources on a topic. 

• Blackwell companion to social movements
• Encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender & queer culture
• Encyclopedia of race and racism
• International encyclopedia of men and masculinities
• International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences
• Sage encyclopedia of LGBTQ studies
• Sage handbook of neoliberalism
• Sage eReference

For more, try, "Background information - Anthropology" and "Background information - Sociology"

Find books in the Library

Catalogue search will find books, journal articles, videos, government reports and more.  After doing a search, you can limit your search results by "Resource type" of "Books."  

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue

   You can also use  SFU Library Catalogue: Advanced Search

Search for books by a specific author

Use Catalogue Search: Advanced keyword

Any Field: Author    Contains: Marx, Karl    Resource type: Books

Search for books on a topic

Research question:

"What is the effect of the Anti-terrorism Act and how is it used for national security"

(anti-terror* OR national security OR border security) AND (law OR legislat* OR regulat*) AND (race OR racial OR islam*) AND canad*

    Limit search results (left-hand column) by "Resource type" of "books", and by "Subjects" (Canada, Canada. Human Rights Act)

More examples:

• canad* AND (race OR racial* or racism)  
  • Look at the titles in the "results list" and for those books that look relevant, click on the "subject heading" to find more books on the same topic
     
• canad* AND govern* AND "public policy" AND  ("child care" OR "day care" OR daycare)
   
• (gay OR lesbian* OR transgender* OR LGBT OR queer) AND (rights OR law OR legislat*) AND canad*
   
• canad* AND govern* AND "public policy" AND  [your topic words]

Combine different concepts using AND
Combine same concepts using OR
Use quotation marks to search for a phrase
Use brackets for synonyms
Use asterisk (*) for different endings of words

Note:  For Catalogue Search, when combining concepts, use CAPITAL letters ( "OR", "AND")

Look at the titles in the "results list" and for those books that look relevant, click on their subject headings to find more books on that topic.

Browse by subject

Browse by Subject    (change the default "title" to "subject").  Browse by Subject will only result in books, not book chapters or journal articles.

• Blacks -- Canada -- Social conditions
• Canada -- Emigration and immigration -- Government policy
• Canada - Race relations
• Canada - Social Conditions
• Canada -- Social Conditions -- 1991-
• Canada -- Social policy
• Child welfare -- Canada
• Child welfare -- Government policy -- Canada
• Citizenship -- Canada
• Equality -- Canada
• Ethnicity - Canada
• Foreign Workers -- Canada -- Social Conditions
• Foreign Workers -- Government Policy -- British Columbia
• Foreign workers -- Government policy -- Canada
• Gay rights -- Canada
• Globalization -- Canada
• Immigrants -- Canada
• Immigrants -- Canada -- Economic Conditions
• Immigrants Canada Social Conditions
• Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Social conditions
• Indigenous peoples -- Canada -- Government relations
• Minorities - Canada
• Minorities -- Civil Rights -- Canada
• Multiculturalism Canada - Government Policy
• Native peoples -- Canada -- Social conditions
• Neoliberalism -- Canada
• Poor -- Canada
• Poor Women -- Canada
• Poverty -- British Columbia
• Poverty -- Canada
• Race discrimination -- Canada
• Racism - Canada
• Refugees - Canada
• Social classes -- Canada
• Social integration -- Canada
• Social problems -- Canada
• Transgender people
• Women -- Government policy -- Canada
• Women Immigrants -- Employment -- Canada

Find journal articles

For journal articles, it is useful to search within the databases for the discipline for which your are writing your essay.  It is a great way to find the current theories and critical debates. 

If the articles are not be available full-text, then use the "Get@SFU" icon to see if the Library has the journal. For journals  not owned by the Library, use the Citation Finder/ILL tab to request a copy of the article from another library (free).

For additional help, refer to the How to find journal articles, What is a scholarly journal? [guide], Finding articles: Advanced search techniques [video 3:13 mins]

Sociology and Anthropology databases

Tip: Limit search results to "scholarly", "academic", "peer-reviewed" articles.  You may also want to "sort" to view the "newest first"

• Sociological Abstracts -- key database for sociology and anthropology journals
• Anthropology Plus -- key anthropology journals
• Social Sciences Full Text  - indexes social science journals.
• AnthroSource  Full-text access to journals produced by the American Anthropological Association
• Social Theory - documents from prominent social sciences theorists.

Canadian topics

• CBCA Complete  - scholarly and popular journal articles for Canadian topics.  Limit the results to "scholarly."
• Canada Commons (formerly, Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris) - for public policy documents from Canadian institutes, think-tanks and research groups.
• Canadian Newsstream - covers the major Canadian daily newspapers.
• Canadian Research Index - Canadian government publications.

Other databases

Statistics

Statistics Canada is the major statistical agency for Canada but useful statistics can also be found on individual federal, provincial and municipal government department sites.

• Canadian Federal, Provincial and Local Governments
• Statistics Canada
  • Publications by subject

• BC Statistics   

Citing Government documents, Canadian - APA style | MLA style | Chicago style

Useful websites

Below are some useful websites. 

Search tips for Google and Google Scholar

• PovNet - Building an online anti-poverty community
  • Reports and documents
• Metropolis BC - check their working papers for research studies done on Canadian immigrants. 

Search tips and techniques

• Use "or" to combine same concept
• Use "and" to combine different concepts
• Use "quotation marks" to search for an exact phrase
• Use asterisk (*) the truncation symbol, for variation on endings of words (work* will find: work, works, worker, working, workforce, etc.)
• For Abbreviations, also use full names: ILO or "international labour organization"
• Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar
   
  • Use intitle: to force Google to find those words in the titles of results.  Use quotation marks ("") to search for phrases
    • intitle:"airport security"
       
  • Use filetype: to tell Google to find certain filetypes
    • filetype:pdf
       
  • Use site: to specify results from a government web site
    • "Airport security”  site:gov

Library guides

• Library Research Tutorials Animated tutorials on search techniques for finding books and journal articles
• Annotated bibliographies
• Evaluating sources
• How to find journal articles
• How to place an Inter-Library Loan request - to obtain books and articles from another library (free).
• Library Catalogue search guide
• What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?
• What is plagiarism?  Guide to common forms of plagiarism and how to avoid them.
• Finding and evaluating resources on the web
  • Evaluating sources [video from Western University 2:16 mins]
• Search tips for Google and Google Scholar
• Citation or reference management tools (Zotero or Mendeley) - use these tools to manage your citations and to create  bibliographies for your papers.   For assistance with Zotero or Mendeley, email, citation-managers@sfu.ca.

Writing help

• Student Learning Commons
  • Academic writing resources
  • Book a consultation

Selected resources on writing essays:

• A guide to writing sociology papers 
• The Sociology Student Writer's Manual and Reader's Guide
• The writer's handbook for sociology
• Writing ethnography 
• Writing for social scientists : How to start and finish your thesis, book, or article
  • Access to this book is limited to three-simultaneous users
• Writing up qualitative research