Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
In this video we will take a look at the Sociological Abstracts database and explain a few key features
of the database. First we must access the database by clicking on Subject Guides, Sociology,
Journal Articles, and Sociological Abstracts. This is the interface for the Sociological
Abstracts Database. Notice that it defaults to an advanced search, which allows you to
enter multiple search terms for one search. It also allows you to set limitations and
narrow the scope of your search. There is an option to limit your search to only include
peer reviewed materials. You may at times be asked to find peer reviewed journals for
your work. Peer reviewed means that the journal or article has been evaluated and critiqued
by researchers and experts in the same field as the author. Now we wil perform a basic
search. If you look at the drop down menus beside each search box, you will notice that
each one says all fields. All fields means that your search will include all of the fields
located int he drop down menuy. CABS means that your search will also include the citation
and abstract for each result. The citation is what you will need when you are citing
your source. The abstract is the author's brief description of what an article is about.
It is a good idea to keep it on all fields as a default especially when you are first
performing searches and becoming familiar with the database. So, let's keep the search
simple at first. We will type in the keyword "gender" and click on search. This gives us
a large number of hits. Note the suggested subjects. We did a keyword search but it turns
out that there is a tag by the same name. These subject tags are used to indicate the
themes covered in any article, just like the subject headings in the catalogue. On the
right hand side of the screen, you are able to further narrow your search results so as
not to include such a large number of articles. For example, we can click on the scholarly
journals, now our results list only includes scholarly journals. There is also a feature
that allows us to choose related subjects to refine your search. If we click on the
subject tab, a pop up window opens up and gives us a list of subjects we can choose
to include our exclude. Let's include the subject Sex Stereotypes and click on the apply
button. The articles are currently sorted according to the relevance to the keyword
and subject we used to create our search. You can change this by using the drop down
menu on the right hand side. Let's choose to see the most recent article first. Now
we can click on the article title to get more information about the article. The first two
lines at the top include the information you will need to cite your article. The block
of text in the centre of the screen is the article abstract. You should read the abstract
of an article you're interested in because this description will usually let you know
if the article is useful to the topic you are researching. You can also take a look
at the subject headings to see what the themes are in an article. If you would like to cite
the article in a bibliography or works cited, you can click on the cite tab for the proper
citation. The citation pop-up window has a drop down menu which allows you to change
the citation style according to which style you need to use. Although it creates the citation
for you, it's a good idea to double check your citation with a style guide to ensure
that it is correct. Now that we have all the information about an article we want to look
at, in the next video we will look at how to get the full text of the article.