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SOC 316: Mental Health and Society (Professor Roche)

Scholarly Journal Articles

 

How do we know a source we've found is a scholarly journal article? Look for these clues:

  • written by scholars (with affiliations to universities or research institutions)
  • written for other scholars and students (and therefore difficult to read)
  • published in an academic journal with a peer-review process
    • Here are some examples:
      • Critical Sociology
      • Journal of Applied Sociology
      • American Sociological Review
  • structured format (abstract, introduction, etc...)
  • extensive references at the end

Most Useful

Also Useful

 

Tips Examples
Use keywords, not long search phrases

 

Instead of searching for "How is social anxiety among college students culturally related?" break down your search into the main keywords:

social anxiety, cultural, college students

To get more focused results:

Use quotation marks (" ") to keep phrases together

Use AND to combine different keywords

"social anxiety" AND cultural

To get broader results:

Use OR to combine similar/associated keywords

Truncate words that have a variety of endings with a *

("social anxiety" OR "social phobia") AND (racial or ethnic)

 

ethnic* = ethnic, ethnicity

Look for ways to limit your search in the database You can often limit by type of article (scholarly and peer-reviewed) & year of publication