SOAN 353 - Social Construction of Adolescence

A Guide for Library Research Assignments

Spring 2007

If you have any questions please contact me via telephone at x1360 or kirkto@earlham.edu.       -- Tom Kirk

 

Reference Sources

Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology. 1997.
Ref GN 25 .C65 1997

Not organized like the traditional encyclopedia, this volume has a series of thirty-eight essay of chapters that explore various areas of anthropology. There are chapters in the humanity section (biologically oriented) on human evolution, tools and tool behavior, disease, hunting; in the culture section on ritual, arts, technology and symbolism; and in the social life section on sex and gender, socialization, language, collective violence, inequality, and law to name just some of the topics. Each chapter has an excellent bibliography of primary literature cited by the authors and a list of secondary sources for "Further Reading.

Dictionary of Sociology. 2001
Ref HM 425 .L39 2001

Definitions of technical terms, descriptions of subfields and brief identifications of important sociologists are included.

Encyclopedia of Adolescence. ed. by Richard Learner, Anne C. Peterson, and Jeanne Brooke-Gunn. 2 vols. 1991
Ref HQ 796 .E5.8 1990

These volumes contain some 200 topical essays on some aspect of the interdisciplinary study of adolescence. Each article is written by a scholar or practitioner with expertise in the field. Selective bibliographies provide access to the scholarly literature. If a topic has any relationship to the life of humans between the ages of 13 and 19, it is probably treated in essay in these volumes. The articles are not arranged alphabetically by subject, so use of this publication must begin with the index. Despite its age it is not "old" and continues to provide access to the scholarly literature, which is useful.

Encyclopedia of Human Behavior. 4 vols. 1994
Ref BF 31 .E5 1994

This differs from other encyclopedias of psychology in that it focuses on human behavior. This both limits and expands coverage. Since it focuses on behavior, the EHB does not cover topics such as psychology and religion, or psychology and literature well. However, it provides detailed coverage of biological, psychological, and chemical aspects of human behavior. This coverage gives attention to disorders and therefore updates the International Encyclopedia of Psychiatry (Ref BF 31 .I5 1977). Grayson Holmback (Psychologist, Loyola University, Chicago) authors an excellent overview on the "framework for understanding adolescent development."

Encyclopedia Psychology. 8 vols. 2000
Ref BF 31 .E5 2000

This highly praised encyclopedia covers the following broad fields of psychology: applied, clinical, cognitive, developmental, educational, ,measurement, physiological, social, and theoretical. Its distinguished contributors include several past presidents of the American Psychological Association. There are about 1,500 subject entries and 650 entries for persons. Volume 4 has a detailed index as well as the full biographical information for books and articles referred to in the articles in volumes 1-3.

Encyclopedia of Sociology. 5 vols.
Print: Ref HN 435 .E5 2000 Also available online.

This encyclopedia covers a broad range of topics in sociology, both theoretical and applied. All of the articles are signed and include references. This is the only encyclopedia of its kind, and it is very useful in beginning research in virtually any aspect of sociology.

International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences. 26 vols.
Ref H41 .I58 2001

This encyclopedia is the scholarly encyclopedia of the field. It is chuck full of articles of varying lengths that provide a terse summary of the state of subject and include selected references to the primary literature on the topic. This is not your typical encyclopedia with broad generalized summaries and references to other broad summaries. Instead it allows the reader to quickly burrow into the primary literature of the topic and provide an overview. Given its scholarly focus, there will be terminology that requires further checking in order to fully understand the article being read.

Oxford Reference Online

This resource is an online version of about two hundred dictionaries and handbooks in a wide variety of subject areas. It is possible to search individual titles, a subject subset or the entire collection. Information found will be brief identifications and definitions of terms. Excellent ready reference source.

The Survey Handbook. 2nd ed. 10 vols. 2003
Ref HN 29 .S724 2003

This collection of volumes is a practical guide to all aspects of surveying including mail, computer, and face-to-face surveying. The last of these, "How to conduct face-to-face surveys," volume 5, will be the most useful. Other volumes on surveying generally, how to manage, analyze and interpret survey data and how to report survey results, will also be useful.

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Annual Reviews

Annual Review of Anthropology. 1959 to date.
Ref GN 1 .A5. Available online

Electronic versions of index 1984 to date, and full text 1996 to present. Describes in essay form important new contributions to the literature in various subject areas. Each section is written by a specialist and is accompanied by extensive bibliography. Subject indexes with each volume.

Annual Review of Sociology. 1975 to date.
Ref HM 1 .A6. Available online

Electronic versions of index 1984 to date, and full-text 1996 to present. Each annual volume has bibliographic essays on ten to twenty broad topics in sociology. The contributors are experts in their fields and they provide excellent surveys of current literature. Wherever an author and a date, e.g., "Elder (1973)," appears in an article, it refers to an item fully cited in the bibliography at the end of the article.

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Finding Books

Otherwise known as PALNI, for the Private Academic Library Network of Indiana, the catalogincludes not only Earlham's holdings but also those of some two dozen other academic libraries in the state.

Note that the screen provides various types of limits: which location or locations to search, date of publication, and material type (e.g., books, audio/visual, serials).

Once you have located at least one apparently useful title on your subject, note the subject headings at the bottom of the full record. You can then search for that heading by clicking on the heading.

 

WorldCat, is a massive database containing the holdings of thousands of libraries around the world. It therefore is a very powerful reference tool that can provide awareness of many many items that have potential usefulness for your research. This includes books, archival collections, recordings in all formats, Web pages and virtually any other format of recorded information except individual periodical (magazine, journal) articles. However becoming aware of sources is just the beginning. Now you have to get access to the physical items. Depending on the nature of the material, which libraries have the items, and the amount of time you have to do the research, it may not be passable to get the material. It is also true in many cases that the material simply won't be useful. Therefore using WorldCat requires a good deal of discernment on your part.


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Databases

Academic Search Elite. (EBSCOhost)

This index is a broad ranging general index to popular and scholarly periodicals covering all fields of knowledge. The index covers some 3,300 periodicals. The time span of coverage varies. About 250 titles start as early as 1984, while most titles are indexed since about 1990. For 1,500 titles, the full-text of the articles is included with a different starting date for each title that generally falls mostly between 1995-1998.

Sociological Abstracts 1963 to date

This is an index for students of sociology and anthropology, in that it covers most of the published literature - journal articles, books, dissertations, and research reports - in the field. The indexing begins in 1963 and the abstracts began appearing in 1974. The database includes over half a million records.

Anthrosource Irregular.

This is a collection of fulltext of 32 journals published by the American Anthropological Association. The back files are inconsistent in the time period covered. For some (e.g., American Anthropologist) the entire file is available from its beginning (in AA's case 1888) while for other titles only the most recent few years are available. Much of what is in Anthrosource is indexed in Sociological Abstracts. Therefore for complete searching use SA and there will be links to the articles in Anthrosource. If you want to browse a few recent issues of anthropology journals then Anthrosource is the source to use.

SocialSci Search. 1991 to date. Also known as part of the Web of Science.

This index provides a broad interdisciplinary approach to the entire spectrum of the social sciences. Unlike the Sociological Abstracts, it provides less in-depth coverage across sociology, anthropology and more breadth on the social sciences by covering economics, political science, public policy, management and other aspects of the social sciences.

Selecting a specialized index.

There are other indexes in, for example, architecture, art, literature, music, and religion, which might be useful. To select an index go to the libraries' databases online web page and pick the subject which encompasses your research topic.

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Other resources

Evaluating Internet Resources

It is essential that you evaluate Internet Resources as you use them. The diversity of sources and their quality make it essential that you apply some basic criteria to the resources. To help you with that assessment by providing specific suggestions about how to evaluate an electronic resource, I recommend you consult with a document available on the Earlham libraries' web site. For further information, perhaps the best site on the web about evaluating web sites, see Elizabeth Kirk's, a librarian at Johns Hopkins University at the JHU library Web site.

How to cite electronic resources.

This directory, prepared by Earlham Libraries, will lead to several different style guides for citing electronic resources. Pick the style that is consistent with the citing style you are using for print sources.


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