230.341 Medical Sociology

This guide is intended for students in Medical Sociology.  Students with additional questions should feel free to contact Ellen Keith, Librarian for Sociology.

Please note that the database links and many other links in this guide will require you to set up remote access if you are connecting from off-campus.  You do not need to do anything if you are using a computer on campus.

Finding Journal Articles

To find journal articles on a topic, you'll need to search one or more of the databases to which we subscribe.  Often, figuring out where to start can be difficult because we subscribe to over 400 databases.  We do group them by subject so you can look at the list of Sociology databases or go directly to the three that I'm recommending below:

Sociological Abstracts  (All US JHU)

International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)  (All US JHU)

PubMed  (Any location)

The first two databases, Sociological Abstracts and International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, come from the same vendor and can be searched together by getting into one, selecting the "Specific Databases" link and then checking the box for the database you wish to add and clicking on "Continue to Search."

Searching Tips

Most database search screens start at the Advanced Search, which means you can do boolean searches ("and," "or," and "not") connecting two or more concepts together.  The Advanced Search also allows you to select Search Fields like Author, Title, Subject, Journal Name, etc., that help you refine your search.  Think in terms of keywords rather than phrases, so something like "what are health care options for immigrants?" is searched as immigrants AND health care. 

Question too many or too few results.  If you retrieve too many hits to reasonably go through, limit your search by adding another term to be more specific or changing your search from a keyword to a subject search, also making it more specific.  If you get too few hits, find a synonym for the term you're using or remove a term from your boolean search.  And, at any point in the research process, consult with me for assistance.

Getting to the Article

When you've found an article citation you like, then you want to find the full-text of that article.  There may be a full-text link in the citation, which means you can simply click on that, but if you don't see that, then click on the  link.  This link opens new windows that will take you to the full-text of your article from another database or e-journal, and if not, displays where the print copy is available in the library.