Sociology

Useful links

For quick access to high quality information for your assignments, try the links on these pages.

Set up the University VPN system to access these resources any time, anywhere.

New in Sept 2024: Watch this short video about searching effectively with the new Discovery service

Reading Lists

Got an assignment? Have you looked at the reading list to see lecturer recommendations?

Key Starters for Essays and Dissertations

Identify different sources of information and link to ebooks and other top sources

Research Methods

Finding Articles

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For most assignments, our Discovery Service will give you enough sources to work with. This short video shows you how to get the best from Discovery.

Sometimes you may want to try specific databases or journals - perhaps your lecturer has recommended particular names as a good way of finding articles. This section lists key sources for Sociology:

• Why use journal articles?

• Journals

These are some top picks. Lots of other journals are available via Discovery.

• Databases

• Advanced Citation Databases

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Citation databases can be very helpful for advanced research at Masters' level upwards as they help you move quickly from a known author or article to finding out which other articles list them in their bibliographies. This is especially useful when you have only found a small number of results in your initial searches.

• Scopus

Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and conference proceedings. It also features smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research.

Top tip: do a normal keyword search, then change Sort on: at the top right of your results from Date (newest) to Cited by (highest). This will show you which articles on a topic are cited most by other academic authors.

Short video on doing a basic search in Scopus

Watch this short video about advanced features of Scopus

• Web of Science

fully searchable in EBSCO Discovery

You will find the Social Sciences Citation Index the most useful part of this - just below Timespan on the left of the search screen, click More settings so that you can de-select the rest.

Watch these training videos

Additional access instructions:

For off campus access use this link