How To Search
Sociological Abstracts

Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,700 serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations,and conference papers. Records added after 1974 contain in-depth and nonevaluative abstracts of journal articles.

Getting Started

Simply click "Sociological Abstracts" on the Libraries’ database page.

Please be sure to press the log out button at the top right when you are through using Sociological Abstracts!

Basic Searching

> Connect keywords with AND, OR, NOT:
burglary AND prevention finds articles that contain both burglary and prevention
burglary OR theft finds articles that contain either burglary or theft
burglary NOT prevention finds articles containing burglary but not prevention

> Use an * on the root of a keyword to find variants of the word.
Example: burglar* finds burglar, burglars, and burglary.

> Enclose phrases in quotation marks. Phrase searching is especially useful when you want to make a search specific.
Example: "due process of law" finds this exact phrase—not articles about due dates, computer process, and the law.

> If necessary, use parentheses to organize a complex search:
Alabama and (theft or steal) finds articles containing Alabama and either theft or steal

Improving Your Searches

> Click Change on the right side of the screen to limit a search to a particular date range, language, or type of document.

> Select Advanced Search at the top left to limit your search to a particular journal.

> Click Index at the top left to browse a list of suggested terms when you are unsure of what keywords to use for a search.

Finding Copies of the Articles

A few citations now offer links to online texts. These citations display crimson flags next to the title and contain "EBSCO Online" links to the full texts. To find copies of other articles, you must look in the Libraries’ Catalog to see if the campus libraries own the journal containing the article or the book:

> At the bottom on the citation, click the blue "Check for Holdings" to enter the Catalog.
> The journal or book will appear if the library owns it.
> For journals: scroll down and see if the library has the appropriate month and year of the journal or magazine (Please note: if multiple headings for the journal appear, click on each heading to see if the library owns the appropriate month and year.)
> Write down the Location and Call Number for the journal or magazine. (In the Gorgas Library, recent issues are located on Floor 2. Older, Bound volumes are on Floor 4M). If the journal is not available in the campus libraries, the red message "Your search resulted in no hits!" will appear on the screen.
> Retrieve the article form the shelves.

Printing, emailing, and saving

Checkmark the records that you want to print, email, or save.

Printing: Click the Print icon at the top right of the result list. Click the yellow "Print" button at the top right. Click "OK".

Emailing: Click the Email icon at the top right of the results list. Fill out "From", "Send records to" and "subject" fields. Click the "Send Mail" button at the top right.

Saving: Insert a disk in the computer. Click the Save icon at the top of the page. Click the "Save" button at the top right. Select "A drive" from the "Save in" menu. Click "Save".

Help

>Ask a librarian at the Information Desk in one of the campus libraries.
>Call the Libraries at (205) 348-6047