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.

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 handbooks and encyclopedias

Use encyclopedias, handbooks or textbook for overviews, definitions, and to identify key authors or concepts. 

• Encyclopedia of global studies
• Handbook on Global Social Justice
• Handbook of Globalisation
• Sage eReference
• Wiley-Blackwell encyclopedia of globalization

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." Sign-in (top right of screen) to obtain access to electronic resources.

Search the SFU Library Catalogue Advanced Search

• global* AND capital*
• marginal workers
• colonial violence
• "international immigration"
  • Search limited to "books" and "online only" resources
• (democra* OR political unrest) AND (international monetary fund OR imf)
• "foreign aid" AND ("international financial institutions" OR "World Bank" OR ADB OR IMF OR IFI)
• "global care chain"
• media AND commodifi*
• terror* AND global*

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

• An introduction to capitalism
• Anti-capitalism a Marxist introduction
• Beyond Global Capitalism
• Capitalism : the basics
• Capitalism and its alternatives
• Deported : immigrant policing, disposable labor, and global capitalism
• Global capitalism, global war, global crisis
• Globalization : causes and effects
• Globalization and global justice : shrinking distance, expanding obligations
• Histories of Global Inequality New Perspectives
• Imagined Globalization
• Marginal workers : how legal fault lines divide workers and leave them without protection
• On capitalism and inequality : progress and poverty revisited
• Regulating Capitalism? The Evolution of Transnational Accounting Governance
• Regulating global corporate capitalism
• Sociology of globalization
• Thinking globally : a global studies reader
• Violence in capitalism : devaluing life in an age of responsibility
• Whither capitalism? : internalizing the market and free investment

Subject Headings

Browse Search  Change "title" to "subject"

• Capitalism
• Capitalism -- [name of a country or region]
• Capitalism -- Developing countries
• Capitalism -- India
• Capitalism -- Social Aspects
• Globalization
• Globalization -- [name of country or region]
• Globalization -- Africa
• Globalization -- India
• Globalization -- Economic aspects
• Globalization -- Economic aspects -- Developing countries
• Globalization -- Social Aspects
• Mass Media -- Social Aspects

Find journal articles

Search within the databases below for scholarly articles.  

How to find journal articles tutorial. 

What is a scholarly (or peer-reviewed) journal?

If the full-text of the article is not available within the database then use the "Get@SFU" link to find it or to initiate an inter-library loan request.

• ProQuest Sociology Collection - for issues related to class, gender, racism, sexuality and sexism and theoretical and applied sociology, social science, and policy science.
• Social Sciences Full Text
• Canada Commons (formerly, Canadian Electronic Library from desLibris) - for public policy documents from Canadian institutes, think-tanks and research groups.
• Ageline is an online index to articles from journals and magazines, books, research reports, and videos related to issues of ageing and life at 50+.
• ELDIS Gateway to Development Information - includes research & policy documents on ageing, population, climate change, corporate social responsibility, debt relief, food security, gender, globalization, health and more.
• Women's Studies International - key database for feminist perspectives
• Communication and Mass Media Complete  - Important database for "popular culture", "social media", "body image" and "mass media" topics
• Academic Search Premier - Multidisciplinary index to academic and popular journals. Indexes many women's studies journals.

News sources

• Nexis Uni  International news coverage, business news, legal cases and law reports.
• PressReader  Full-text of current issues of newspapers from around the world in full-color, full-page format. Includes thousands of newspapers in over 40 languages from Canada and internationally. A rolling back file of coverage varies with each newspaper ranging from 3 days to 2 months.
• Alternative Press Index  Alternative & radical media
• The Guardian
• The New York Times
• Democracy Now
• BBC News
• Al-jazeera

Films

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

Writing help

• Student Learning Commons
  • Academic writing resources
    • Writing for university
    • Academic writing - a list of over 200 books.
• 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