Search terms and research questions
Once you have identified a workable research question (or more than one) you can prepare to search for scholarly articles by identifying your question's main ideas; they will become search terms. You can also think of synonyms for those main ideas, so that you have alternate terms ready as you begin to search.
For example, a researcher interested in the moral panic surrounding heavy metal music and its allegedly Satanic influence on young people during the 1980s might identify these potential primary and alternate search terms:
- Moral panic, social concern, media panic
- Heavy metal, subcultures, rock music, rock and roll
- Youth, adolescents, young adults, teens
It is possible you will find yourself investigating two or more related research questions. Do not attempt to search for scholarly articles about all of them at the same time, as this could result in a search that is overly specific, returns too few results, and excludes relevant articles about one or more of your questions. Rather, search for sources about each question one at a time.
Sociology databases
Sociological Abstracts is the database most focused on sociology. The others on this list cover the social sciences more broadly, but very possibly will contain articles about your research topics. If you are unable to find scholarly articles about your topic in any of these databases, ask a librarian for help.
- Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window Sociological Abstracts provides access to U.S. and international literature on sociology and related disciplines and may be useful for research in social work and women and gender studies.
- Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) This link opens in a new window Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) allows you to see who has cited who/ what in any of the most cited 3,000 journals in the social sciences. It also allows you to search for articles on topics.
- Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) This link opens in a new window Social Sciences Full Text covers the latest concepts, theories and methods from both applied and theoretical aspects of the social sciences, this full-text resource provides access to the most important English-language social science journals. Indexes more than 700 peer reviewed journals.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window JSTOR allows you to search across approximately 2,000 journal titles from more than 50 disciplines. It contains complete backfiles of scholarly journals starting with the first issues, many of which date back from the 1800s. Although the majority of titles do not have the most recent 3 to 5 years available in full text, there are some which have the current issues available.Note: Additional content has been permanently added to JSTOR, including archived journal collections and primary resources. Searches performed using the databases page link will include results from the additional sources, as will the link above.
In any of these databases, but especially in Sociological Abstracts, you might encounter the blue "Find It @ BALL STATE" button, which indicates the full text of an article is not available in the database you are searching, though you might be able to link to it in a different database. For more information about Find It @ BALL STATE, see this guide's "Help and tips" page.
Features of article databases (search interfaces, filters, metadata)
For in-depth advice on searching the University Libraries' article databases, you may refer to the Sociology 681 video research tutorial. A few features of the databases are worth noting again here.
Article databases commonly feature a search page that offers two or three text boxes where you can type your search terms separately as single words or short phrases. Typing an entire question into an article database does not work.
Article databases also include filters that allow you to quickly narrow your search by specifying new criteria. Common options include limiting a search to articles from scholarly journals or by publication date.
Lastly, databases include descriptive information about the articles they contain. This information often includes "subjects" or "subject terms," which are lists people, concepts, places, and things an article is principally about; and abstracts, which are one-paragraph summaries of articles. Subjects and abstracts can give you a sense, very quickly, of what an article is about and whether it is relevant to your research question.