Sociology

Beginning is the hardest part! And we know you might have to restart a research topic or project, we're here to help.

Let's start together - (putting some of that library lingo in () parenthesis) and #3 is HIGHLY recommended

1. The Libraries are a friendly place to learn and research new topics. You can reach out to the librarian for your subject area, whether your major or the course you are taking now. Email, call or schedule that Zoom screen share meeting with a Subject Librarian.
2. New to UCI, new to databases, or these databases, follow along with the tutorials for a few database searches using Academic Search Complete, JSTOR, CQ Researcher, and Google Scholar. 
3. Don't know where to start? Research topic is too big (broad) or small (narrow) or giving weird results? Take a look at the Information Literacy Tutorials (research skills) to think about (brainstorm) your topic in different ways, or learn about the different types of results (resources). 
4. There's Always More Tutorials and our friendly librarians to ask for help!

Where do you start? Everyone develops and refines their own strategies and processes based on what makes the most sense to them. Generally speaking, research is an iterative process - research questions may evolve as you dive into the scholarly literature or explore how your topic is currently framed in the news. Or if your project involves collecting data (in interviews or from questionnaires, for example), your literature review may take different shapes as you analyze the data for prominent themes.

Below are a few tips and strategies to get you started and stay organized. 

• Brainstorm your topic: What sub-topics are you interested in? Are you looking at the topic through a specific framework or through a specific lens? Are you interested in the topic during a specific time frame? Are you exploring how a particular population of people connect to this topic? What are some keywords/phrases useful to search this topic? Check out this Concept Mapping tutorial as you brainstorm your topic.
• Types of information: Decide what kind of information you're looking for. Different types of sources will offer different perspectives, and you might need to search in different places to discover these different types sources.
  • Books and Encyclopedias can offer broad overviews or historical context.
  • Scholarly journal articles can offer empirical evidence or more focus on a specific intervention or population.
  • Popular newspapers/media such as New York Times can offer societal context.
  Consult the menu on this guide for suggested places to search for articles, books, data, news, and more.

• Outline your topic: You may need different types of sources for different parts of your project (e.g. an encyclopedia for your Introduction; scholarship for your Literature Review) and you might need to combine different search terms for different sections of your project. An outline helps you organize what sources and information you have to support each section of your paper or project.
• Search numerous places: You can play around with different keyword combinations in Google Scholar and try searches in UC Library Search. A regular web search can lead you to recent news or advocacy organization reports on the topic. Check out these tutorials on Choosing Keywords and creating Boolean searches, which can help you string similar or different concepts together. 
• Use bibliographies to your advantage: Oftentimes if you find a few good sources, their bibliographies can lead you to more material on your topic. See additional strategies in the box below.
• Start a Bibliography page right away: By creating a Works Cited or References document right away, you can keep a list of all the sources you intend to use, and also be ready to include in-text citations as you start synthesizing your sources in your paper. Check out the Citation Management tab on the menu for more information about citations.

When you find a promising resource, try the following strategies to find additional material:

• In books, use the Table of Contents to determine if one or two chapters might be useful. You don't have to use the whole book in your project.
• Browse the References list at the end of a chapter or article to find additional sources.
• Copy/paste the article title into Google Scholar and use the "Cited by" feature at the bottom of each citation to find more recent material.
• Always read the Abstract to determine if an article might be useful in your research
• Find the author-supplied keywords or subject heading terms mapped in the catalog to find related material

Opposing Viewpoints is a good place to begin researching topics that are broadly covered in the news. It includes viewpoints from popular (news, media, organizations) sources as well as academic/scholarly sources.