Finding Articles and more: Sociology Databases

Though journal articles covering issues of interest to sociologists and sociology students can be found in resources from virtually all subject areas, the databases below are often the best places to start for sociology courses and topics:

• SOCIndex: On EBSCO, the same platform as Academic Search Complete, but more focused on sociological literature.
• Academic Search Complete: large, multidisciplinary and easy to use; includes lots of full-text articles.
• Sociological Abstracts: an authoritative well-indexed source that includes scholarly/academic sociology journals and topics.
• Google Scholar: a simple and powerful way to broadly search for scholarly articles, reports and books. If if you are a novice searcher, however, it may not be easy to decipher the list of results.

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For news, magazine and journal articles of Canadian origin or covering Canadian subjects (but not necessarily academic or anthropological material) start with these general sources:

• Canadian Newsstream: full-text access to Canadian daily newspapers including the Gazette.
• Eureka.cc: full text access to English and French language Québec & Canadian newspapers , magazines, newswires, blogs and broadcast transcripts.
• ProQuest Combined Canadian: indexes a wide variety of Canadian sources, from newspapers, transcripts and newsletters, to academic journals and theses.
• Canadian Periodical Index (CPI-Q): newspapers, magazines, journals.
• Factiva: Full text of international newspapers (including Canadian), transcripts and newswires (license for only one user at a time).

En français

• Eureka.cc: full text access to English and French language Québec & Canadian newspapers , magazines, newswires, blogs and broadcast transcripts.
• Érudit: academic journal articles, theses, books and book chapters - mostly from Québec.
• Repère: magazine and academic journal articles, mostly from Québec. No full text.

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Below is a sampling of additional useful sources for sociology research:

Specialized databases:

• Gender Studies Database
• LGBT Life

See also Anthropology Databases,  First Peoples Studies and Research Guides in all other subject areas.

Multi-subject databases:

• Web of Science: includes social sciences, humanities, arts. Offers citation searching.
• Scopus: large multidisciplinary database. also offers citation searching.

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ENCYCLOPEDIAS can provide that all-important background and context for research papers. Here is a sampling:

• Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology: Often the very best place to start for your paper.
• Gale eBooks and Oxford Reference Online search multiple subject encyclopedias simultaneously.
• Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
• See also our Encyclopedia finding guide

REVIEW or SURVEY journals try to give an overview of a topic or research area, and provide long lists of references. Here are two to try:

• Annual Review of Sociology: Note that your searches here will by default include Annual Reviews in multiple subject areas, not just Sociology.
  
  
• Sociology Compass
  
  
• Oxford Bibliographies. Can provide brief introductions, and extensive lists of important sources in many subject areas within Sociology and more.
  
  

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• ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Full Text: Over two million doctoral dissertations and masters theses (90% from North America) published since 1861, although most of the full text starts from 1997.

NOTE: See also Concordia University Library's guide on How to find theses.

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