Sociology: Articles & E-Journals

An introduction to databases and tools for sociology research

Database Search Tricks

AND returns results containing all terms: alcohol AND murder
OR returns results with either term: murder OR homicide
Parentheses ( ) indicate separate concepts, like an equation, (A or B) and C: alcohol AND (murder OR homicide)
Quotation marks " " return results using that specific phrase: "alcohol consumption"
Truncation * returns results with a root word and any ending: sociolog* [finds sociology, sociological ...]
Watch for citation chaining features that allow you to find items that are cited by or also cite a relevant item.

To locate the full text of an article in a database, use the purple button:

JSTOR
Full-text back issues of hundreds of scholarly journals. Check "Sociology" in the disciplines list to limit to the sociology journals covered by JSTOR.

ScienceDirect
Current issues of scholarly journals published primarily in the sciences and social sciences.
Directory of Open Access Journals
A collection of quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals, covering all subjects and many languages.

Sociological Abstracts
The best index for Sociology journal articles, conference papers and dissertations. Use the Thesaurus to explore sociology subject headings, see ProQuest's guide to Sociological Abstracts for help searching, and check the ProQuest database page for info on coverage.
Web of Science
Excellent interdisciplinary social science coverage; can answer "who has cited this book or article?"
Academic Search Complete
Scholarly and general interest sources (about 50% full text) in business, humanities, social sciences, and science and technology.
Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full-Text
International in scope, indexing publications in criminology and related disciplines.
Directory of Open Access Journals
A collection of quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals, covering all subjects and many languages.

Google Scholar
A large but uneven collection of citations across a wide range of subject areas, including scholarly articles.
SocArXiv Papers
Open archive of the social sciences and part of the Open Science Framework Preprints server

Journal metrics:

Journal Citation Reports
Tool for ranking journals by their citation influence. From the makers of Web of Science.

Google Scholar metrics
Another tool for ranking journals by citation influence, using the h-5 & h-5 median indicators
ScImago
Journal & country ranks; uses Scopus data.
Eigenfactor Journal Ranking
Algorithm developed by researchers at UW that "rank[s] journals much as Google ranks websites."
CiteScore
Free metrics from Elsevier, for serial titles in the Scopus database
CWTS Journal Indicators
Indicators, including Impact per Publication (IPP) & Source Normalized Impact per Publication (SNIP), drawing on data from the Scopus database

Use one or more of these tools for streamlined access to PDFs.

LibKey Nomad
Streamline your access to articles with this handy browser extension.
Proxy Bookmarklet
Add the Proxy Bookmarklet to your browser to log in for full text access from off-campus without having to start from the Libraries website.
Configuring Husky OnNet
Instructions on how to set up Husky OnNet to access UW-restricted library resources. Note that to access third party subscription resources (e.g. databases), on connecting to Husky OnNet you must click on "Change Server" and select "All Internet Traffic."
Google Scholar: Library Links
Add University of Washington to your "Library Links" to link directly to UW-licensed full text from Google Scholar.