Skip to Main Content

Sociology 4: Social Problems (Ely)

Getting Started

Depending on your topic idea, you'll want to find background information, perhaps from an encyclopedia. Why? Encyclopedias can help you to:

  • Understand the scope of your topic--is it too broad or too narrow?
  • Understand how your topic is broken down into sub-topics.
  • Identify concepts or themes relevant to your topic.
  • Identify important terms and vocabulary that can be used in further searching.

Encyclopedia Databases

The the library has some databases that you can search for  encyclopedia and handbook information.

Begin exploring books and articles

You may want to get an idea of how much information exists on your topic idea and what kinds of things sociologists are writing about it. It can be useful to do a quick search in the following databases:

Try searching the Library Catalog, Albert for books.

Try Sociological Abstracts for journal articles

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.