This step-by-step guide provides a guide to finding information for your assignment.

If you would like individual assitance with finding information for your assignment please contact the Sociology Librarian.

See also: Using the Library (online tutorials and workshops from UC Library)

Before you start, spend five minutes making a mind-map or list to brainstorm all of the words and concepts around your chosen topic, including synonyms and related concepts. This process will help you:

1. Clarify your topic
2. Break it into component parts or themes (and allow you to focus your topic and discard elements)
3. Identify key words to use in your searches.

You will find your information more effectively by asking the following questions about your key search words:

What synonyms or related words should be included in my search?
e.g. adolescents/ teenagers/youth   climate change/ global warming

What about search words with variant endings?
Use truncation to find alternative endings of words e.g.global* will find global, globalisation, globalization etc
In many databases, the truncation symbol is an asterisk.

What about search words with different spellings?
You may need to include both British and American spellings of words.  Either:

• Use an or between search terms to find different spellings e.g. globalisation or globalization.  
• Use truncation e.g. globali* to find globalization or globalisation
   

Experiment with combinations of search words to find a good range of articles on your topic.

The Library has subject dictionaries and encyclopedias that are excellent sources for definitions of sociological concepts, explanations of sociological theories and overviews of areas of sociological study.

Check Learn for recommended reading. 

Check Learn for recommended reading. To find other material search the UC Library catalogue or MultiSearch:

To search MultiSearch:

• Type your search words into the MultiSearch box
• If you know the title or author, search using the author's lastname and a few words of the title.
• Use the limits on the left of the results screen to limit to books/ebooks or journal articles
• For academic journal articles, tick the 'scholarly & peer-reviewed' limit along with 'journal articles'

Other tips for finding books:

• Check for books held in the High Demand Collection using the Course code search.
• Follow up on references in recommended reading.  
• Browse the library shelves in the classification sequence for Sociology. 

Use journals to find the latest academic research and analysis of a topic. Each issue of a journal will contain a number of different articles by different authors. 

Search a database to find articles on your topic. Use MultiSearch to search across all books and journal articles available via the Library.  Google Scholar is also useful for finding journal articles and cited references (articles that cite another article).

References on Learn or in your course outline have already been evaluated for quality. You will need to evaluate sources that you find yourself. Think critically about the information you find. The quality of your information will contribute to the quality of your assignment.

More on evaluating your sources

Avoid plagiarism by citing all the sources of information you use in your essay. Most sociology courses require you to use either the Harvard or APA citation style.

See the Writing Guides page for books that have useful tips for writing about Sociology topics. Academic Skills Centre offer courses and advice on academic writing.