ANTH 315:
Tips for library research
- Anthropology Plus: the most anthropology-specific database, but only the first stop for multi-disciplinary topics. Combines two resources - Anthropological Literature from Harvard and Anthropological Index from the Royal Anthropological Institute in the UK.
- SOCIndex: On EBSCO, the same platform as Academic Search Complete, but focused on sociology and social sciences, including anthropology.
- Academic Search Complete: large, multidisciplinary and easy to use; includes lots of full-text articles.
TIP: you can search all 3 EBSCO brand databases above at the same time by selecting "choose databases".
- Google Scholar: a simple and powerful way to broadly search for scholarly articles, reports and books. If you are a novice searcher, however, it may not be easy to decipher the list of results. **For off-campus use set your Scholar Preferences.
- AnthroSource: developed by the American Anthropological Association (AAA), this specialized source includes current issues of AAA peer-reviewed journals and archives of all AAA journals; limited indexing and search capabilities; full text of almost all publications.
- JSTOR: provides full-text access to backfiles of important scholarly journals in many disciplines. You can limit your search results with SUBJECT: anthropology. WARNINGS: The latest 3 years or more are NOT usually available.
USEFUL TIPS:
- For Quick Tips on how to enter search terms in most of these databases, see this one-page SEARCH STRATEGIES CHEAT SHEET.
- You can click on the Scholarly/Peer-reviewed journals checkbox in most of the databases above to ensure that the citations you choose are acceptable peer-reviewed articles. See also Evaluating Sources.
- Use the Findit@Concordia button within the databases to try and access the text of the articles.
**FUN TIP:
If you have found an interesting citation that is not very recent, use the "Cited by" link available in many databases (especially in Google Scholar) to find similar and more recent articles**
The main task of articles in review journals and scholarly bibliographies is to review the literature related to a broad research area or topic. They include extensive bibliographies which can lead you to many other sources on your research question. Try these:
- Oxford Bibliographies - Anthropology
- Annual Review of Anthropology
- Compass Journals (inclludes related Geography and Sociology, but NO Anthropology Compass)
The following tools may help:
- How to Write an Annotated Bibliography (SFU Simon Fraser University Library)
- Sample entry from an APA annotated bibliography (Concordia Library guide)
- APA Citation Guide (7th Edition): Annotated Bibliography (University of Nevada, Reno)
**NOTE: YOUR PROFESSOR'S INSTRUCTIONS TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER ANY GENERAL INFO GUIDES OR EXAMPLES ABOVE.
FORMATTING GUIDES -- Bibliography and In-text Citations:
- See our Citation & Style Guides for help in formatting references using various styles, such as:
IS IT SCHOLARLY/ACADEMIC/PEER-REVIEWED?
Your professor's instructions should always be the first criteria in determining what qualifies as an appropriate academic source. If you feel you need additional guidance in this area, however, you might find some relevant tips in the guides below.
- Our library tutorial on: How do I know if an article is scholarly or peer reviewed?
- A quick tip or quick video from our library guide about peer-reviewed articles
- Scholarly vs. Popular Sources guide from Berkeley (for book chapters as well as journal articles)
- Peer-review in 3 minutes (NCSU Libraries)
When evaluating the quality of a variety of material, the following library guide might provide some help:
- How to evaluate research materials and resources
- ACT UP Evaluation Method (an alternative approach that tries to "push against dominant narratives")
at Concordia:
- Use our Sofia Discovery tool
BEYOND Concordia:
- The Sofia Discovery tool can simultaneously search the catalogues of all Quebec university libraries, and of more than 10,000 libraries worldwide. Under the Library facet on the left, simply select: Bibliothèques universitaires du Québec or Libraries worldwide.
- Google Books. Unlike simple library catalogues, this tool searches inside the pages of books. Once you have identified a useful book here, you can search for the print or ebook at Concodia using our Sofia Discovery tool.
*Warning: Though books (or book chapters/essays) can prove to be useful sources for your literature review, it will take more judgment and evaluation on your part to determine if they qualify as part of your peer-reviwed research. See the Help Evaluating section of this page for guidance.
Virtually all of the tools listed on this page can help you find material about the research method(s) such as participant observation, interviewing and more.
But you should also try out our new specialized tool:
- Sage Research Methods Online (SRMO)
- This tool contains encyclopedias, dictionaries, books, journal articles and videos dealing with research methods in both theoretical and practical terms. It also includes Methods Map, a visualization tool that tries to map relationships between methods.
- Discipline filter: Anthropology
- How to write an annotated bibliography
for general guidelines on how to write varios kinds of annotated bibliographies, including a sample from a published annoted bibliography in a social sciences journal. - Oxford Bibliographies - Anthropology, described above, also provide good examples of very extensive scholarly annotated bibliographies
- Annotated Bibliography Samples from the Purdue OWL Writing Lab
- Tīmatanga: An annotated bibliography - an annotated bibliography produced by a student for a summer research project with the Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa/New Zealand.
**NOTE: YOUR PROFESSOR'S INSTRUCTIONS TAKE PRECEDENCE OVER ANY GENERAL INFO GUIDES OR EXAMPLES ABOVE.