LBST 201 Workers in the Global Economy: Globalization, Labour and Uneven Development

Contact info

For Library research help, please contact Moninder Lalli, Liaison Librarian for Labour Studies 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

    It is useful to start by obtaining an overview of a topic by consulting scholarly encyclopedias, handbooks or even textbooks.  These assist with identifying key authors, debates and resources.

    Find journal articles

    Use these indexes/databases to locate journal articles on your topic.  Use the "Get@SFU" icon to find a copy of the article.  Limit search results to "academic / scholarly" articles.

    Tip: Check for email, export and search history options in each database!

    For more databases, try Labour Studies Databases

    Guide: How to find journal articles

    Selected journals

    Simplest way to search for a particular journal is to search for it by "journal name" in the A to Z journals list (from Library's Home page).

    Find books

    Library Catalogue search guide 

    The Library Catalogue provides access to books, journal articles, videos, government documents and much more.  To limit the search results to "books", use the filter (left-hand column in search results) to "resource type" of "books."

    Search the SFU Library Catalogue, either the Basic or the Advanced search

    For known items it is best to check using "Browse by title" icon.

    E.g. Part of the family? : nannies, housekeepers, caregivers and the battle for domestic workers' rights

    Search for books by a specific author or organization

    Select "Author" from the pull-down menu in the Browse Search.

    Search for topics using search strategies (see, below).  You can limit your results by subject (left-hand column) and resource type, books and sorted by "newest first"

    Proper syntax for Boolean logic (words that allow you to combine concepts)

    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.

     

    Selected books

    Book series: Workers' movements and global capitalism

    Find books 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.

    Labour standards and other government documents

    Canada

    Guide: Canadian labour standards

    Statistics Canada

    International

    SourceOECD - includes statistical data on country studies, forecasting publications, reports, periodicals, and socio-economic databases. Topics covered include agriculture, developing economies, education, employment, energy, environment, migration, social issues, and sustainable development.

      Click on "Browse by theme" tab and choose "employment"

    Recommended web resources

    Searching using Google

    While searching the internet can find unexpected gems, be sure to evaluate the sources using the guide, "Evaluating sources"

    • Use intitle: to force Google to find those words in the titles of results.  Use quotation marks ("") to search for phrases.  With a Google search the Boolean operator "AND" is assumed, so you don't need to use it in your search strategy.
       
    • Use site: to specify results from a government web site
       
    • Search websites of different countries using the "country domain code"
    • E.g. Search internet domains from China (.cn) or Japan (.jp)

    For more, try Search Tips for Google and Google Scholar

    Library guides

    Presentation skills

    Writing help