Writing in Sociology at Queens College

Finding Sources

D

on't know where to go to find sources for your research paper? The links on this page will get you moving in the right direction.

Note: The links on this page will open in a new browser window.

Library research
CUNY+
CUNY+ allows you to search the catalog at the Rosenthal Library, or any other library in the City University of New York. Need help using CUNY+? Laguardia Community College has a very helpful CUNY+ tutorial (.pdf link).
Social Sciences Journals
Rosenthal Library provides online access to many scholarly journals in the social sciences. You can access these journals and databases automatically from any on-campus computer. To access them from home, follow the instructions on this page.
Researching Sociology at QC
James Mellone, QC's Social Sciences Librarian, has put together a guide to using Rosenthal Library aimed especially at students writing research papers in sociology. Here you'll find lists of books, databases, and journals, and detailed instructions on how to use them.
Queens College Library
Home page for Rosenthal Library at Queens College. Aside from some of the specific resources listed above, this page provides vital information on interlibrary loans, library hours, contacting a librarian, and a variety of other services.
New York Public LibraryAdvanced Search
From this page you can access the New York Public Library's extensive catalog.
Web resources
Sociology Web Resources
Provided by the QC Library, this is a collection of links to web sites that may be useful in sociological research, ranging from government databases to scholarly sociological organizations.
GoogleAdvanced Search
Google is a great way to get a lot of information from the web fast. The problem is that it isn't all accurate. Treat what is written on the web the same way you treat what is written on paper: Make sure the information is from a trusted source - don't believe it just because someone wrote it down.
To get the best results out of Google searches, use the Advanced Search, which allows you filter results by (among other things) language, date, or domain (.com, .edu, etc.). Click here for some help using Advanced Google Search.
Google ScholarAdvanced Search
Google Scholar is a good deal safer than Google's main search, because it narrows your search to academic, peer-reviewed journals - journals that are generally far more trustworthy than the web at large. One of Google Scholar's most useful features is called "Cited By". This allows you to see how many other articles cite the article in question - in essence, a popularity guide for scholarly work. Note that Google Scholar does not provide access to the full text of most results; using the citation information that Google provides, you can usually find the entire article using the library links provided above.
Google Book SearchAdvanced Search
Google Book Search allows you to search the content of hundreds of thousands of books. Because of copyright concerns, Google will typically allow you to see just a page or two of the books that you find with your search. But these few pages are often enough to determine whether the book is worth pursuing through your library's resources.
Encyclopedias and dictionaries
The Columbia Encyclopedia
The full, searchable text of The Columbia Encyclopedia. A good place to start your research and find additional sources.
Wikipedia
An open-source, user-created encyclopedia. Like any encyclopedia, Wikipedia is a good place to get an overall sense of a topic and to find valuable bibliographical information. Generally speaking, professors will not accept any sort of encyclopedia - and Wikipedia in particular - as source for a research paper.
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
A meticulously researched dictionary of the English language. The OED provides extensive data not only on a word's current use but on its origins and its use throughout the history of the language. In order to access the full text of the OED, use an on-campus computer or follow the instructions for off-campus access to library resources before visiting the OED's home page.
The American Heritage Dictionary
This dictionary is available from any computer with internet access, on campus or off.