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Finding Peer-Reviewed Research Articles (Empirical Studies) in Sociology Journals

This guide provides suggestions on where and how to look for studies (research) from high quality sociology journals. Options include browsing peer-reviewed sociology journals or searching databases containing sociology studies

Find Useful Articles in the References of a Relevant Article

Finding a particularly useful and relevant article for your topic can often be time consuming. However, once you have found a relevant article you can often find additional useful articles by reviewing the articles that are connected by citations.


The publication of research on a particular topic is a worldwide conversation among scholars who are interested in and who also conduct research (and publish) on that topic. The previous research of scholars always guides and informs new research – so when a scholar publishes new article they will acknowledge and cite the previous works that supported their research.

 

Citations can create a network of very similar and related articles. Use this network!
 

Review the References

Finding related research conducted prior to your relevant article.

 

One of the easiest ways to locate additional research connected to a particularly relevant article is to simply review the References (bibliography) at the end of that article. 

 

Suppose you found the article  "Bodies, Non-Human Matter and the Micropolitical Production of Sociomaterial Dis/Advantage" by Fox and Alldred was very useful for your project. Begin reviewing the References at the end of the article to find cited articles that may also be relevant to your project.

Review the references of relevant articles to see if you can find additional articles cited by the author that are also relevant.

 

If the article "Culture as Class Symbolization or Mass Reification?" by Gart,am looks promising - paste this full title into Google Scholar ... 

Paste relevant articles from reference lists into Google Scholar to obtain additional articles.

 

If Google Scholar does not provide access to the article (in this case it does), paste the title in the library discovery system OneSearch. If neither Google Scholar nor OneSearch provide access to the article - request it through interlibrary loan.