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Contemporary Social Problems: Home

Research support resources and services for students working on their research plan and report for SOCI-230

Research Plan and Paper for SOCI-230

For your Research Plan*, you must provide a:

  • Reference list
    • ​​​​​​​Do a preliminary search for articles to be used for your literature review (assignment due after your Research Plan is evaluated). 
    • 3 articles
    • APA citations required for each article 

For your Literature Review*, you must provide an:

  •  Examination of what people wrote about your topic before you do original research
    • 5  sociological peer-reviewed scholarly research articles that support your topic identified in your Research Plan
    • APA citations required for each article 

For your Social Problems Research Paper*, you must provide:

  •  References to sociological peer-reviewed scholarly research articles that support your topic
  • Formatted in APA in-text
  • Reference page also formatted in APA 

*Full details for this assignment are in the Canvas course space 

Databases and APA

Use this database, Academic Search Premier, to find peer-reviewed scholarly research articles to support your topic. 

EBSCOhost

 

I recommend you watch this quick tutorial on advanced searching. This will help you go from a list of ZERO or THOUSANDS to a more manageable list of resources appropriate to your topic. 

 

EBSCOhost is a great place to begin research once students have selected a topic and are aware of possible subtopics. The searcher must first identify which databases within EBSCO are relevant to their topic, and then search all selected simultaneously. EBSCO will supply citations for each article in the major styles (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.), and the extended records usually show additional search terms and abstracts. Link to this video here: https://use.vg/UYVbr8.

Advanced Tips

Once the basics are mastered, searchers can refine their searches with the additional tricks in this video. Although I used EBSCOhost to demonstrate, most of these tips will work in other databases. Link to this video here: https://use.vg/SGcgie.