Gleeson Library: SOC 308: Research Methods in Sociology: Articles and Databases

Articles and Databases

Search the following databases to find relevant journal, magazine, and newspaper articles. To see our full list of databases, see the Databases A-Z list.

SocINDEX with Full Text
SocINDEX with Full Text is the world's most comprehensive and highest quality sociology research database. The database features more than 2.1 million records with subject headings from a 20,000+ term sociological thesaurus designed by subject experts and expert lexicographers.
SocINDEX with Full Text contains full text for more than 860 journals dating back to 1908. This database also includes full text for more than 830 books and monographs, and full text for over 16,800 conference papers.

On-Campus Link
Fusion
Fusion allows you to search, in one place, the majority of the library’s books, articles, videos, etc. It includes all the materials in our library catalog Ignacio, as well as the content of the majority of our many databases.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
Does Fusion include everything the library has?
No, but it includes so much of what the library has that it will almost always be a good place to start a search.

When would Fusion not make sense as the first place to search?
Some examples:

If you’re interested in finding only books, or a specific book title, then our library catalog Ignacio might be a more appropriate place to begin.
If you’re looking specifically for statistical data, or encyclopedia/dictionary entries, or images, it would be better to use databases devoted to those specific types of information.
If you're looking for a specific Journal title, you should use our Journal Finder.
I’m very proficient using the subject-specific databases in my field. Is there any reason I should use Fusion?
Because Fusion will have such broad coverage, it may locate relevant materials published in other fields that you wouldn’t otherwise find in a subject-specific database.

So then why would I want to choose a subject-specific database anymore—can I just use Fusion instead?
Fusion is not replacing any of our subject-specific databases. These databases offer valuable advanced searching capabilities tailored to their subject areas.

On-Campus Link
JSTOR
Full text of older issues of journals. Access includes Arts & Sciences I-XV, Business I Collection, Health & General Sciences Collection, and the Life Sciences Collection. To support online learning, JSTOR has made additional journal and primary source archival collections, 26 public health journals and over 6,000 articles related to COVID-19, openly accessible through June 30, 2023.
On-Campus Link
Political Science Complete
Political Science Complete (PSC) provides full text for more than 520 journals, and indexing and abstracts for over 2,900 titles, (including top-ranked scholarly journals), many of which are unique to the product.
PSC has a worldwide focus, reflecting the globalization of contemporary political discourse. The database also features over 340 full-text reference books and monographs, and over 36,000 full-text conference papers, including those of the International Political Science Association. PSC includes a subject-specific thesaurus with over 17,500 terms (7,366 preferred and 10,175 non-preferred terms), to provide subject searching guidance to researchers.

On-Campus Link
Education Source
Education Source is designed to meet the needs of education students, professionals and policy makers. The collection includes full text for more than 1,700 journals, 550 books and monographs, education-related conference papers, citations for over 4 million articles including book reviews and over 100,000 controlled and cross-referenced names of educational tests.
Coverage in Education Source spans all levels of education from early childhood to higher education and also includes educational specialties such as multilingual education, health education and testing. Subject matter includes Adult Education, Continuing Education, Distance Learning, Government Funding, Multicultural/Ethic Education, Social Issues, Student Counseling, Vocational Education as well as many others.

On-Campus Link
Communication Source
Developed from a merger of the EBSCO databases Communication and Mass Media Complete and Communication Abstracts (formerly published by Sage), this is the premier research database for Communication Studies. This comprehensive resource offers worldwide full-text content pertaining to communication, linguistics, rhetoric and discourse, speech-language pathology, media studies and related fields and includes many unique sources previously not available.
Communication Source features full text for more than 800 titles, including over 600 active full-text titles.

Indexing and abstracting is included for more than 1000 Core titles. Also featured is backfile coverage of top titles in Communication, reaching deep into the 20th century. Content is derived from academic journals, conference papers, conference proceedings, trade publications, magazines and periodicals. Content development for Communication Source is guided by expert advisors who are academic librarians and Communication bibliographers from leading international institutions.

On-Campus Link
APA PsycInfo
APA PsycInfo is the American Psychological Association's renowned resource for abstracts of scholarly journal articles, book chapters, books, and dissertations. It is the largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health, and contains over 3 million citations and summaries dating as far back as the 1600s, with one of the highest DOI matching rates in the publishing industry. Ninety-nine percent of its content is peer-reviewed. Formerly called PsycINFO.
Included is information on the psychological aspects of related fields such as medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, technology, linguistics, anthropology, business, law and others. Journal coverage, which spans from the 1800s to the present, includes international material selected from around 2,500 periodicals in dozens of languages. APA PsycInfo is indexed with controlled vocabulary from APA's Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms.

On Campus Link
America: History and Life
America: History and Life is the definitive index of literature covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. With indexing for 1,700 journals from as far back as 1910, this database is without question the most important bibliographic reference tool for students and scholars of U.S. and Canadian history.
On Campus Link
Chicano Database
Chicano Database includes over 67,000 records from more than 2,400 journals and other resources including newspapers, books and book chapters. The database provides coverage dating back to the 1960s and selective indexing dating back to the early 1900s. Subject coverage includes art, bilingual education, education, labor, literature, mental health, law, poetry, politics and sociology.
On Campus Link
EconLit
EconLit, the American Economic Association's electronic database, is the world's foremost source of references to economic literature with citations and abstracts to economic research dating back to 1886.
It provides links to full-text articles in all fields of economics, including capital markets, country studies, econometrics, economic forecasting, environmental economics, government regulations, labor economics, monetary theory, urban economics, and much more.

EconLit uses the JEL classification system and controlled vocabulary of keywords to index six types of records: journal articles, books, collective volume articles, dissertations, working papers, and full-text book reviews from the Journal of Economic Literature. These sources bring the total records available in the database to more than 1.2 million.

On-Campus Link
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global
The most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, offering millions of works from thousands of universities. Full-text coverage spans from 1743 to the present, with citation coverage dating back to 1637.
Google Scholar
Articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Click "more" below to customize Google Scholar to access USF library journal subscriptions.
Customize Google Scholar to provide full-text links to journal articles available through Gleeson Library subscriptions:

If you are on campus, Google Scholar should recognize you as a USF user and link you to the full text.

If you are working from an off-campus location, you will need to manually activate USF's Full Text Finder in Google Scholar Library Links:

1. Go to the Google Scholar search page.
2. In the upper left corner of the page, press the button made of three horizontal lines to open a new menu.
3. Click "Settings."
4. Select "Library links" and search for "University of San Francisco."
5. Check "University of San Francisco – Full Text Finder" in the search results, then click Save.

When you search Google Scholar, you should now see "Full Text Finder" links to the right of your results. Click on these links to check if USF has access to your article.
Ethnic NewsWatch
Ethnic NewsWatch covers 1990 to present and includes newspapers, magazines, and journals of the ethnic and minority press, providing researchers access to essential, often overlooked perspectives. The publications offer both national and regional coverage
Ethnic NewsWatch is the only current database devoted to presenting multi-ethnic and multi-cultural publications in one resource. Coverage begins in 1990 and is updated daily with new content. Many of the titles are not found in any other aggregated resource.

Find Full-Text

If the full-text of an article is not available, click on to check options for finding the full-text, including requesting the article via Interlibrary Loan. Learn how to use in this short video tutorial.

Alternatively, you check if USF owns the journal by searching the Journal Finder by journal name. Learn how to use Journal Finder in this short video tutorial.

Find Articles Not at USF

If the library doesn't have access to the journal article you want, you can still get it through Interlibrary Loan. Use Illiad to request your items online. You may receive your item in anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks. Be sure to start your research early!

NOTE: Due to changes in library operations nationwide, only electronic articles are available for request. Gleeson Library will cover ILL borrowing fees up to $15 per request for all USF students for the duration of San Francisco's shelter in place ordinance, subject to change. Faculty will continue to have up to $35 per request covered by the library, electronic articles only.

This guide was first curated with care by Sherise Kimura, and is currently maintained by Nicky Andrews.

SOC 308: Research Methods in Sociology

Articles and Databases

Find Full-Text

Find Articles Not at USF

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