Contact info

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Librarian for Sociology / Anthropology by email  moninder_lalli@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian.

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.

Selected reference works

Encyclopedias, handbooks or textbooks provide overviews, definitions and identify key authors and ideas.

• Atlas of Endangered Species
• Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste: The Social Science of Garbage
• Gale encyclopedia of environmental health
• Handbook of global environmental politics
• Research handbook on law, environment and the global south
• Routledge handbook of climate justice
• Routledge Handbook of Environmental Displacement and Migration
• Routledge handbook of environmental justice
• Routledge handbook of gender and environment
• Routledge handbook of human rights and climate governance
• Routledge handbook of human rights and disasters
• Routledge handbook of urbanization and global environmental change

Databases for journal articles

How to find journal articles" tutorial. 

The databases below will provide articles on information technology and society.  If the full-text of the article is not available, use the "Get@SFU" link to find it. If the Library doesnot provide access, then use the Citation Finder/ILL tab to request a copy from another library (free).

Anthropology Plus - material relating to anthropology and archaeology. Unites Harvard's Anthropological Literature and the Royal Anthropological Institute's Anthropological Index Online

AnthroSource - Full-text access to journals produced by the American Anthropological Association

Sociological Abstracts: Sociological aspects of twenty-nine broad topics, including anthropology, business, collective behaviour, community development, disaster studies, education, environmental studies, gender studies, gerontology, law and penology, marriage and family studies, medicine and health, racial interactions, social psychology, social work, sociological theory, stratification, substance abuse, urban studies, and violence.

Environment Complete -- Comprehensive coverage (over 1,900 journals) in environmental and many related disciplines. Also available is fulltext access to over 200 monographs.

For more, try databases for Resource & Enviornmental management

Find books in the Library

Library Catalogue search guide

Search the SFU Library Catalogue.   You can also use  SFU Library Catalogue: Advanced Search

Books by title

Books can be searched by title using the "Browse by title" search, Catalogue Search or the Advanced Search.  The "Browse by title" will not show book chapters or book reviews.

Keyword searches for topics

Examples:

• (environment* OR ecolog*) AND (threat* OR collaps* OR danger)
• "climate change" AND ("forced migration" OR displacement)
• (environment* OR ecolog*) AND (societ* OR anthropolog*)
• environment* AND (movement* OR resist*)
• eco-Marxis* OR ecofeminis*
• (indigen* OR aborig*) AND (environment* OR ecolog*)
• "environmental racism"
• "Refuse disposal" AND (race OR class* OR gender* OR minorit* OR indigen* OR aborig*)
• environmen* AND health
• environmen* AND health AND canad*

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")

Selected books

Below are examples of books from the results lists of the keyword searches above.

• Anthropology and climate change : from actions to transformations
• Anthropology of climate change : an integrated critical perspective
• Clean and White: A History of Environmental Racism in the United States
• Climate Action in a Globalizing World: Comparative Perspectives on Environmental Movements in the Global North
• Climate change, vulnerability and migration
• Climate change, policy, and security : state and human impacts
• Climate Refugees: Beyond the Legal Impasse?
• Confronting ecological and economic collapse ecological integrity for law, policy and human rights
• Critical ecofeminism
• Ecofeminism / Vandana Shiva
• Environmental change, forced displacement and international law : from legal protection gaps to protection solutions
• Environmental health : from global to local
• Environmental policies : an international review
• Environmental refugees
• Everyday Exposure: Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada's Chemical Valley
• Global green politics
• Global justice and climate governance : bridging theory and practice
• Indigenous Knowledge for Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation
• Interrogating the Anthropocene Ecology, Aesthetics, Pedagogy, and the Future in Question
• Right to nature : social movements, environmental justice and neoliberal natures
• Stolen future, broken present : the human significance of climate change
• Sustainable Communities and Green Lifestyles: Consumption and Environmentalism
• Toxic injustice : a transnational history of exposure and struggle
• Traditional ecological knowledge : learning from indigenous practices for environmental sustainability

Browse by subject

Browse by subject (change the default "Browse by title" to ""Browse by subject" using the pull-down menu)

• Climatic changes
• Ecofeminism
• Environmental justice
• Environmental policy
• Environmental policy [country or region]
• Environmental politics
• Ethnoecology
• Human beings -- Effect of climate on
• Refuse disposal
• Traditional ecological knowledge

Presentation skills

• Resources on developing your participation skills
• Resources to help you improve your presentation skills

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
• 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

Writing help

• Student Learning Commons
  • Academic writing resources
    • Writing for university
    • Academic writing
  • 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