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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.
- Fifty key sociologists: the contemporary theorists
- International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences
- Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Major Social Theorists
Find journal articles using databases
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?, and 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" 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 -- for scholarly articles in social sciences.
- Social Theory contains the full text of works of selected social theorists such as Max Weber, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and more.
- Use "Browse" tab
- Browse by "Authors" or "Theories" or"Subject"
- Search
- Advanced Search
- Search in texts
- Advanced Search
- Use "Browse" tab
Find books
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."
Library Catalogue search guide
Search the SFU Library Catalogue, either the Basic or the Advanced search
Search by author
Search by topic
Note: In the searches below, search results have been limited to "Resource type" of "Books" and selected "Subjects"Combine different concepts using AND
- (Durkheim OR Marx OR Weber OR "Du Bois") AND (critic* OR critiq* OR analysis OR debate*)
- (Durkheim OR Marx OR Weber OR "Du Bois") AND ("social change" OR inequality OR power)
- (Durkheim OR Marx OR Weber OR "Du Bois") AND "structural inequality"
- "critical race" AND (theor* OR critique* OR critic*)
- "sociological theory"
- results limited to "books" and "online resources only"
- Marx
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
- Colonialism and modern social theory [print]
- Du Bois: a critical introduction
- Durkheim and Critique
- Karl Marx's Realist Critique of Capitalism: Freedom, Alienation, and Socialism
- Scholar denied : W.E.B. Du Bois and the birth of modern sociology
- Social Class and Stratification: Classic Statements and Theoretical Debates
- Social Theory: Classical and Contemporary – A Critical Perspective
- Souls of Black Folk
- Theory primer : a sociological guide
Browse search
Choose: Browse tab, change "title" to "subject"
Some useful subject headings for this course:
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 provides assistance and numerous, helpful guides.