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

   
Use JSTOR if you have a topic.
  

No topic? If you don't have a topic,
browse some of the peer-reviewed high impact Sociology journals found on the first page of this guide.
   
    

To search these Sociology journals search JSTOR in the Advanced Search mode.

Check the box under the the Journal Filter heading (towards the bottom of the page) and check the box for Sociology.

Then scroll back to the top of the page and type in your topic.

Note you can focus your search by searching for a word or words in the title of an article. Do this by changing a dropdown menu to Item Title.

Using the operator OR allows you to search for synonyms (e.g., farming OR agriculture)

Placing the asterisk at the end of the root of a word allows JSTOR to search for all variations of a word (e.g. farm* looks for farm, farms, farmer, farmers, farming)

Note that you can add additional boxes to limit your search to more specific concepts (e.g., inequality and race)

Set Publication Date range if desired and then click on the "Submit Advanced Search" button.

The plus and minus of using JSTOR to locate peer-reviewed studies.

• PLUS:      Can limit searches to a wide array of Sociology Journals
   
• PLUS:      Journals are peer-reviewed.
   
• MINUS:    Must review the article to be sure it is a “study” (i.e., research or empirical study). Note - many quantitative studies will have sections labeled. Method/Methods/Methodology  and  Results  and  Discussion - however, many qualitative studies may use different terminology.
   
• MINUS:    Most recent research is generally not covered by this approach. (JSTOR is an archive)