Contact info

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.

Research process

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 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 American social movements
• Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media
• Encyclopedia of the Mexican American civil rights movement
• Globalization and Social Movements
• Oxford handbook of social movements
• Oxford handbook of transnational feminist movements
• Palgrave Handbook of Social Movements, Revolution, and Social Transformation
• Separatist movements a global reference
• Social movements reader : cases and concepts
• Wiley Blackwell companion to social movements
• Wiley-Blackwell encyclopedia of social and political movements

Find journal articles

Searching the "Databases for a discipline" is a great strategy to view articles that have been written within the scholarly journals of that discipline.  For help, refer to the How to find journal articles, What is a scholarly journal?, Finding articles: Advanced search techniques [video 3:13 mins]

If full-text of article is not available from within the database, click on the "Get@SFU" to start a search.  If the Library does not provide access, then use the Citation Finder/ILL tab to request a copy from another library (free) through SFU Library's Inter-Library Loans (ILL) service.

• Sociological Abstracts: Key database for Sociology
• Social Sciences Full Text - Broad coverage of social science journals
• Bibliography of Indigenous Peoples in North America - Academic articles and Indigenous news sources.  Covers all aspects of Native North American culture, history, and life from the sixteenth century to the present.

For more, try Sociology Databases

Primary sources

A primary source is a document or other sort of evidence written or created during the time under study, or by one of the persons or organizations directly involved in the event. Primary sources offer an inside view of a particular event. Types of primary sources include: original documents (excerpts or translations are acceptable): diaries, speeches, letters, minutes, interviews, news film footage, autobiographies, official records.

• American Indian Newspapers - Print journalism from Indigenous peoples of the US and Canada from a range of communities. Includes periodicals produced in the United States and British Columbia, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Nevada and Oklahoma, from 1828 to 2016.

  • Click on "Essays" and then check out:

    • Political Activism in American Indian Newspapers

    • Wounded Knee: The Spark that Ignited Tribal Publishing

• Black Thought & Culture - Monographs, speeches, essays, and interviews written by leaders from the black community in America.
  • Use "Advance search" and search through "Subject" (use the list from the drop-down menu, which has names of movements such as the "Black Power Movement, 1966-1975, U.S. Civil Rights Movement, 1954-, or topics such as "Desegregation of schools")
  • Find documents such as the "Black Panther Newspaper"
     
• ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Globe and Mail - Full-text of the Globe and Mail newspaper from 1844 to three years ago. Covers major news and events in Canada and around the world. Includes images, advertisements, cartoons, classified ads, birth and death notices, and full content of the Report on Business section.

• Historical Newspapers - Historical full page and article images from the Globe and Mail, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Vancouver Sun, and the Washington Post from the mid to late 19th century with embargoes for the last 3 to 18 years depending on the newspaper.

• ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Historical New York Times - Full-text of the New York Times newspaper from its inception in 1851 to four years ago. Contains full-page images of each issue.
   
• Times Digital Archive - Also known as the "The London Times" or "The Times of London" this is a digital reproduction of The Times newspaper with a 6-year embargo on current content. It also includes its predecessor The Universal Daily Register (1785-1788). The world's oldest continuously published newspaper, the Times contains extensive national (UK) and international news coverage, UK parliamentary reports, commentary, and editorial opinions. The entire newspaper is captured, with all articles, advertisements, and illustrations/photos.

• U.S Declassifed Documents Online - Cabinet meeting minutes, CIA intelligence studies and reports, FBI surveillance and intelligence correspondence and memoranda, Joint Chiefs papers, National Security Council policy statements, Presidential conferences, State Department political analyses, White House Confidential File materials, and more on the U.S. government and world events in the 20th and 21st centuries.

  • Search using keywords and limit by "subject" subjects such as "civil rights", "labor unions" (includes, CIA's recently de-classified files)
    Searches: civil rights movement; Vietnam war; (protest* or demonstration*); etc.

• Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
  in-depth access to the published histories and records of women’s reform organizations throughout the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
  • Use "Advance search" and search through "Social movements" (use the list from the drop-down menu, which has names of movements)
  • Use "Advance search" and search through "Primary source set" (use the list from the drop-down menu, to find organizations or files such as, "League of Women Voters" and "Women and antislavery")

For more, see  Primary sources databases and News Sources databases
Citing primary sources

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, "resource type" of "books" (left-hand column).

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

Note: In the searches below, search results can be limited to "Online Resources only" and "Resource type" of "Books" and selected "Subjects"

• (social movement* OR protest movement*) AND theor*
• "new social movement*"   AND (Americ* OR USA OR "United States")
  • "new social movements"  AND (Americ* OR USA) AND (mid-fifties OR 1960s OR twentieth century OR)
• ("social movement*" OR protest* OR revolution*)  AND (resistance OR protest* OR movement*) AND [name of country or region]
• ("African American*" OR "Black American*" OR "Black Panther*" OR "Martin Luther King" OR Blacks) AND (activis* OR protest* OR march* OR movement*) AND ("civil right*" OR desegregat* OR freedom)
• (Indigenous OR "Indians of North America" OR "Indian American*" OR "American Indian*" OR "Native American*") AND (activis* OR protest* OR march* OR movement* OR resist*) AND ("United States" OR America*)
• ("Quebec Sovereignty*"  OR Quebec OR FLQ) AND (movement OR referendum* OR separat* OR independence OR crisis)
• ("civil rights OR "human rights" OR feminism) AND (movement* OR protest* OR resistance) AND (women OR gender)
• (capitalism OR neoliberalism OR post-colonial*) AND (resistance OR protest* OR movement*) AND [name a country or region]

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

Use pull-down menu and select, "Source Types" as "Books"

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

When you find a useful book, click on its "subject" to find more books on the same topic.

Selected books

• Art for equality : the NAACP's cultural campaign for civil rights
• As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance
• Being Indigenous: Perspectives on Activism, Culture, Language and Identity
• Campus power struggle
• Chicago Freedom Movement: Martin Luther King Jr. and Civil Rights Activism in the North
• Civil Rights and Beyond: African American and Latino/a Activism in the Twentieth-Century United States
• Civil rights and the making of the modern American state
• Civil Rights Movement and the Logic of Social Change
• Cold War Progressives: Women's Interracial Organizing for Peace and Freedom
• Crucible of struggle : a history of Mexican Americans from colonial times to the present era [print]
• Economic Civil Rights Movement: African Americans and the Struggle for Economic Power
• Encounters on Contested Lands: Indigenous Performances of Sovereignty and Nationhood in Québec
• Global Diffusion of Protest
• Groundwork Local Black Freedom Movements in America
• Hidden 1970s histories of radicalism
• Hippies, Indians, and the fight for red power
• History of Social Movements in Global Perspective: A Survey
• Indigenous Environmental Justice
• Marxism and social movements
• No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement
• October Crisis, 1970 an insider's view
• Other Movement: Indian Rights and Civil Rights in the Deep South
• Radicals in the Heartland: The 1960s Student Protest Movement at the University of Illinois
• Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition
• Say We Are Nations: Documents of Politics and Protest in Indigenous America since 1887
• Selma to Saigon: The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War
• Sixties radicalism and social movement activism : retreat or resurgence?
• Social Movements: The Key Concepts
• Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement
• Understanding social movements : theories from the classical era to the present
• Want to start a revolution? radical women in the Black freedom struggle
• We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism
• Women and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965

Browse by subject

You can also "browse by subject" to find  books about a topic.

Catalogue Search / Browse, then change "Title" to "Subject" and enter "subject" terms.  For large lists, you can sort by "newest first"

To find books about sociologists or their works, search for their name: Marx, Karl, 1818-1883

• African American Women Political Activists
• African Americans -- Civil rights
• African Americans -- History
• Civil rights movements -- United States -- History -- 20th century
• Feminism
• Feminism -- United States -- History -- 20th century
• FLQ [Quebec Crisis]
• Mexican Americans
• Mexican Americans -- History
• Protest Movements
• Protest movements -- [name of country or region]
• Protest Movements -- United States
• Sex -- Social aspects
• Sex and law
• Social Control
• Social control -- United States
• Social legislation
• Social movements
• • See also the narrower term Animal rights movement
  • See also the narrower term Anti-feminism
  • See also the narrower term Anti-globalization movement
  • See also the narrower term Antinuclear movement
  • See also the narrower term Environmentalism
  • See also the narrower term Gay liberation movement
  • See also the narrower term Human rights movements
  • See also the narrower term Labor movement
  • See also the narrower term Peace movements
    --subdivision Protest movements under names of wars, e.g. Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Protest movements
  • See also the narrower term White supremacy movements
• Social movements - [name of country or region]
• Social movements - Canada
• Social movements - China
• Social Movements - Islamic Countries
• Social Movements - Philosophy
• Social Movements - Political Aspects - Canada
• Social Movements - Research
• Social Movements - United States
• Social Movements - United States - History - 20th Century
• Student  movements
• Student  movements -- United States

Library guides

• 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.

Presentation skills

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

Writing help

See the Student Learning Commons for expert and friendly help with academic writing, learning, and study strategies.