Sociology 

Materials which are referred to for brief or general information. Examples include:

• Background or overview synopses (encyclopedia)
• Definitions (dictionary)
• Synonyms (thesaurus)
• Statistics
• Biographical Details
• Maps (atlas)

Links/Resources to the right are specific to this discipline.  General sources can be found at the libraries Reference Sources page.

Reference resources are organized in an order that aids searching (alphabetically, chronologically, etc).  Most include an index which points users to the appropriate section.  Tips for searching:

1. Decide on your search terms
2. Try searching with them
3. If not satisfied with the results, try searching a synonym or related idea

Things to watch out for:

• Is the computer searching only the title/header of the entries or the full-text of the information?  You will get more results, but more of them will be irrelabent if you are searching the full-text.
• Are you searching for a proper noun (name, place,...)?  Make sure that the spelling is correct and try variations if it originated in a foreign language.
• Searching for something by date?  This is trickier than it sounds.  If possible, search for an event name or topic rather than a date, e.g. civil rights movement or hippies or flower children rather than 1960s.

Search a group of online encyclopedias on sociology.

Or, search individual titles below:

You will find these in the Crumb Library Reference area, to the right of the reference desk.

• 21st century sociology : a reference handbook (Ref. HM585 .A13 2007 )
• A dictionary of sociology  (Ref. HM17 .C66 1998)
• Encyclopedia of criminology (Ref. HV6017 .E5295 2005 )
• Encyclopedia of disability  (Ref. HV1568 .E528 2006)
• Encyclopedia of racism in the United States  (Ref. E184.A1 E773 2005)

There are many more - search Bearcat for other relevant encyclopedias, dictionaries and handbooks.