Social Sciences

December and January book requests are arriving in the library.  Check out the full list of latest arrivals!

Because digital writing matters: improving student writing in online and multimedia environments
National Writing Project
Jossey-Bass
2010
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On the origin of stories: evolution, cognition, and fiction
by Brian Boyd
Belknap Harvard
2010
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Digitizing race: visual cultures of the Internet
by Lisa Nakamura
University of Minnesota Press
2008
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The portable film school: everything you’d learn in film school (without ever going to class)
by D.B. Gilles
St. Martin’s Griffin
2005
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Handbook of interpersonal psychology: theory, research, assessment, and therapeutic interventions
edited by Leonard M. Horowitz and Stephen Strack
Wiley
2011
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What people believe when they say that people believe: folk sociology and the nature of group intentions
by Todd Jones
Lexington Books
2010

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Kristyna Carroll
kristyna.carroll@villanova.edu
610-519-5391

Database searching is not the only way to find great scholarly articles for your research project.  Once you have found useful articles, pay attention to the sources those authors use to build their own research.  It is likely that the sources that were important to those authors will also be important to your research.  All scholarly research should include a thorough bibliography or reference list at the end of the article.

Library Materials

To see if Falvey Library owns an article you have seen referenced by other authors, check the Journal Finder.  Either type the title of the journal (not the article) into the search box to then browse for the volume and issue you are looking for, or use the Citation Lookup to search for the entire citation.

To search Falvey’s book collection, go to the Search Tab.  Use the drop-down menu to search by the title or author of the book you are looking for.

Interlibrary Loan

Articles and books that are not owned by the library can be easily borrowed through our interlibrary loan system.  ILLiad is best for requesting articles, and E-Z Borrow is the preferred method for requesting books that are available in that system.

Moving Forward

Checking an article’s reference list is a great way of searching the past for related research, but how can you find out what impact that article had on future research?  The Social Sciences Citation Index allows you to do just that.

Choose the Cited Reference Search to search for the author and journal title of an article you have found to be useful.  Search to see if other scholars have cited that article since its publication.

Very recent articles will not have been cited yet.  Because of the great volume of annual publications, many articles are rarely cited.  Also, works may have been cited by research not indexed in SSCI.

_____________________________________
Kristyna Carroll
kristyna.carroll@villanova.edu
610-319-5391

If you’ve been keeping up with the events in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, you may be interested in these books on the relationship between new media and democracy.

Digital media and democracy: tactics in hard times
Online version
edited by Megan Boler
MIT Press, 2008

Media and political engagement: citizens, communication, and democracy
by Peter Dahlgren
Communication, Society, and Politics Series
Cambridge University Press
2009

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Wired and mobilizing: social movements, new technology, and electoral politics
by Victoria Carty
Routledge Studies in Science, Technology, and Society
Routledge
2011

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Kristyna Carroll
kristyna.carroll@villanova.edu
610-519-5391

Databases Beyond Communication

There are many databases that cover the social sciences generally, as well as those that fall under different disciplines entirely, that may be helpful for finding scholarly articles related to your research.

Sociological Abstracts
Covers sociological topics in fields such as anthropology, economics, education, medicine, community development, philosophy, demography, political science, and social psychology. Journals published by sociological associations, groups, faculties and institutes, and periodicals containing the term “sociology” in their titles are abstracted fully.

Social Sciences Full-Text
Index to international, English language journals in psychology, sociology, anthropology, geography, economics, political science and law.

Business Source Premier
Business Source Premier is a full text business database, covering management, economics, finance, accounting, international business.

PsycINFO
Indexes journals, dissertations and some books in the fields of personality psychology, social psychology, educational psychology and more.

Ethnic NewsWatch
A comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press.

GenderWatch
A full text database of unique and diverse publications that focus on how gender impacts a broad spectrum of subject areas.

Getting to the Full Text 

Although it can be appealing to check the “Full Text Only” box as you search, resist the temptation!  Checking that box will eliminate articles owned by the library through different vendors, as well as articles not owned by the library, from your results.

Articles owned through different vendors can be easily accessed through the FindIt button.  Articles not owned by Falvey Library can be requested through Interlibrary Loan.  These requests are usually fulfilled electronically within 5 to 7 days.

_________________________________
Kristyna Carroll
kristyna.carroll@villanova.edu
610-519-5391

The Free Library of Philadelphia‘s Rare Book Department is hosting an exhibit featuring vintage theater lobby cards now through June 17th.  Read more at their blog.

Finding scholarly articles is an important step in shaping your research project.  This post outlines the key databases for finding scholarly articles in communication.  These databases are all very specific to research in the communication arts.

Communication & Mass Media Complete (EBSCO)
CMMC offers cover-to-cover (core) indexing and abstracts for over 300 journals, and selected (priority) coverage of over 100 more, for a combined coverage of over 400 titles. This database includes full text for nearly 200 journals. Many major journals have indexing, abstracts, PDFs and searchable citations from their first issues to the present.

Communication Abstracts (EBSCO)
Abstracts articles from journals, conference proceedings and hard-to-find documents. Includes scientific research and government policies. Distinct from ComAbstracts and ComIndex, Communication Abstracts is produced at Temple University and provides abstracting coverage of books and journals in all areas of communication studies (mass, interpersonal and new communication technologies).
*Can be searched simultaneously with Communication & Mass Media Complete.

CIOS/ComAbstracts
The ComAbstracts database contains abstracts of articles published in the primary professional literature of the communication(s) field.

Film & Television Literature Index
A comprehensive bibliographic database covering the entire spectrum of television and film writing. It has been designed for use by a diverse audience that includes film scholars, college students, and general viewers. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.
*Can be searched simultaneously with Communication & Mass Media Complete and with Communication Abstracts.

Getting to the Full Text

Although it can be tempting to check the “Full Text Only” box as you search, resist the temptation!  Checking that box will eliminate articles owned by the library through different vendors, as well as articles not owned by the library, from your results.

Articles owned through different vendors can be easily accessed through the FindIt button.  Articles not owned by Falvey Library can be requested through Interlibrary Loan.  These requests are usually fulfilled electronically within 5 to 7 days.

Check back Thursday for more great article resources!

_________________________________
Kristyna Carroll
kristyna.carroll@villanova.edu
610-519-5391

ICPSR holdings include several time series and other types of aggregate data, its holdings consist mainly of raw data derived from surveys, censuses, and administrative records. The data holdings contain some 6,000 studies and 450,000 files that cover a wide range of social science areas such as population, economics, education, health, social and political behavior, social and political attitudes, history, crime, aging, and substance abuse.

ICPSR is a great resource for those times when you would like to complete a project that involves manipulating data, but you do not have time to collect your own.  Or, use the data to support your own research.

In order to download data, you will need to create a MyData Login.

For example, see this description of a 2007 study – Interest Group Activism on the Web: The Case of Environmental Organizations.

Or, use the Variables Database to search for variables across different datasets.  And, you can even analyze data online without having to download the data files!

You can also deposit your own data to be shared with the consortium.

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Kristyna Carroll
kristyna.carroll@villanova.edu
610-519-5391

While researching your topic, don’t forget to take a look at the vast collection of books Falvey has to offer.  You are probably accustomed to finding scholarly articles as part of a research project, but books are also a significant area of scholarly publishing.  Don’t forget to hit the stacks! (Or, click through to our many online and e-books.)

To search for books, go to the library’s Search tab, and then click the smaller Books & More tab.  You can search for keywords, or you can use the drop-down menu to search for specific titles or authors.

If your project involves new media, check out the library’s collection of new media books.  Here are a couple of highlights:

The Breakup 2.0: disconnecting over new media
by Ilana Gershon
2010
Cornell University Press
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Always On: language in an online and mobile world
by Naomi S. Baron
2010
Oxford University Press
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Hacking: digital media and technological determination
by Tim Jordan
Digital Media and Society Series
2010
Cambridge Polity Press

Need a book the library doesn’t own?  Put a request through our EZ-Borrow or ILLiad services.

_________________________________________
Kristyna Carroll
kristyna.carroll@villanova.edu
610-519-5391