This document provides guidance on researching a sociology topic. It instructs the reader to choose a topic, identify relevant concepts and variables, and organize their search terms. It then demonstrates how to construct searches using Boolean operators and wildcards. The document also lists some specialized databases for sociological research and common citation errors. It emphasizes picking the correct database and matching search terminology to the database.

1. Political Sociology
sociology 449
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2. Pick your topic
The impact of Citizen’s United on
sentencing by elected judges
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3. What are the main issues.
Think of terms and variables that
characterize your thesis topic.
Think about what discipline in
addition to sociology would
research your topic.

4. Organize
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Remember synonyms, related concepts,
and terminology specific to a database

5. Concept A
Concept B

6. Connect
use these to construct a search
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7. Use this to connect
different variables. For
example: race and
incarceration
and

8. Use this to search for
either term. For example:
television or film
or

9. Use this to look for root
endings. For example:
rac* looks for racial,
race, races,

10. cUse this to search for
phrases. For example:
“race relations”

11. Sample Searches
“citizen’s united” and sentencing
Criminal court and elections and judges
“Corporate donation*” and influence and judge*
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12. Ways to SearchSpecialized Research – Statistics- Selected Databases- Databases by Topic

13. Ethnic Groups
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14. •
•
•
•

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16. Database by Topic.
allows you to find articles
in a specific discipline
and use more advance
terminology

17. Common Citation Errors.
1. Part of the citation is in ALL CAPS
2. Every Word Of The Article Title Is Capitalized
3. The journal title and volume are not italicized
4. The ending page number for your article is missing
5. There is no hanging indent
Before

18. Fixing the Errors.
1. Change any words that are all caps
2. Make the appropriate words lower/upper case
3. Italicize the Journal Title and volume
4. Look at the PDF of your document and find the
ending page number
5. Create a hanging indent
After

19. Ctrl+ T*
Creates paragraphs
with hanging indents
in Microsoft Word.
Command for Mac
*

20. find the article
PDF - HTML - Full Text - Get it @ CSULB
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23. Research Recap
• Pick the correct database
• Match your terminology to the
database
• Search more than one database
• Keep track of your citations
• Contact me for help BEFORE you
get frustrated!
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