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SOC 480: Sociology Senior Capstone (Professor Michelle Fraser)

Determining whether the scholarship has a sociological lens (Sociological Abstracts)

You will be required to integrate sociological scholarship into your writing, but how do you know what that looks like? Here are some steps you can take to determine whether or not a scholarly article is written from a sociological lens:

1) Determine the expertise of the author(s). Try doing a Google search to determine their institutional affiliation, what degree(s) they have, and what other scholarship they have published.

2) Look closely at the journal in which the article is published. What kinds of topics/subjects do the articles cover? Are the articles written from a sociological perspective?

Finding Sociology or Criminology & Justice Studies Scholarship in Google Scholar

To search for sociology or criminology & justice studies scholarly articles in Google Scholar CSUSM, please follow these steps:

1. Access Google Scholar CSUSM from the Sociology Databases (Also Useful) list. Make sure you log into your Google account. Note: It's important to access Google Scholar CSUSM through the Library's website so that you have free access to full-text articles. You should never pay for articles behind a paywall because the Library can obtain these for you for free when you submit an Interlibrary Loan request

2. In the Google Scholar search bar, enter your topic keywords followed by sociology, sociologist, criminology, or justice studies. Adding those discipline-specific terms will help you narrow to sociology and/or criminology & justice studies articles.

Google Scholar Search Image

3. On the left side of the results page, you may limit your results to the last 10 years by selecting custom range and entering the appropriate year range.

Google Scholar Search Date Range limiter

4. On the right side of the results page, you'll see links to the full-text article.

Google Scholar Search Full Text Links

5. If we do not have access to the article, you may request it via Interlibrary Loan (see Step 7 -- you will want to copy/paste the article title from Google Scholar and do a specific article search).

6. Use the "Save" feature to store article results in your Library, which you can access later on. "Cited by" and "Related articles" will lead you to research that is similar to the initial article.

Google Search Save Cited By Related Articles

7. Determine the expertise of the author(s). Try doing a Google search to determine their institutional affiliation, what degree(s) they have, and what other scholarship they have published.

Also look closely at the journal in which the article is published. What kinds of topics/subjects do the articles cover? Are the articles written from a sociological perspective?