This tab has several goals: to 1) outline a series of steps to follow in conducting your research and developing your paper, 2) to help you better navigate this guide and 3) to highlight some particularly good beginning resources for Anthropology Research.
1. A helpful beginning step to identifying and developing your main topic is to figure out what your basic question/s is/are.
2. Next, consider the various disciplines and concepts that need to be addressed to answer this/these question(s). Think about other terms that describe these concepts, including synonyms, variant spellings, broader or narrower terms. Think also about the kinds of sources you will need to consult to answer these questions.
3.Talk to experts who can suggest beginning sources to you: your professors and anyone else that they recommend.
4. Look for background information on your topic. Reference Sources such as Reviews of Current Research and Encyclopedias are great places to start. Reading Book Reviews is another reference strategy that can help you find relevant sources.
Once you are ready to search, it is very important to remember the following: A keyword search in any electronic resource (a library catalog, a digital library, a database, the internet, etc.) will point you to great initial resources, but you will not find all of the resources you need this way. Thus, it is therefore really important that you follow up on your initial searching by:
See the box below for Key Search Strategies
5. Search for specific information (including Books, Dissertations & Theses, Articles, and Films and Images):
5. The Assistance with Writing, Citing, and Managing Citations tabs point to various tools to help you with writing and keeping track of the sources you use. These include a link to the Teaching & Learning Commons website and the How to Cite Research Guide, which provides help with Citing Your sources properly in various citation styles and using Citation Management Systems. The drop-down tab Annotated Bibliographies and Literature Reviews helps explain what these are and how to write them.
A few Key Databases focused on Anthropology, Science, and Medicine may be helpful starting points -- but there are also many, many more resources that can be found on the Journal Articles tab on this Research Guide or by exploring other Research Guides by looking at list of Research Guides by Subject:
Indexing database for anthropology, archaeology & related topics. Indexes articles in 2500+ scholarly journals, 1870 to present. Combines databases: Anthropological Literature (Harvard/Tozzer) and Anthropological Index (Royal Anthropological Institute)
Covers over 5,700 journals in the biomedical and health sciences and years covered late 1940's - present, with additional older medical literature selectively added. Search using keywords or the controlled vocabulary called MeSH. PubMed will automatically match your keyword terms to MeSH terms. For additional tips, see the Library's PubMed page.
Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology is an unique resource - something between an annotated bibliography and a scholarly encyclopedia. This resource guides researchers and students to the best available scholarship across a variety of topics.
Indexes over 18,000 journals in all subjects (coverage back to 1900 for science and social science journals), as well as 80,000 books and more than 180K conference proceedings. Includes the popular "cited reference search" to identify papers which have cited a previously published work or author. Can also sort by "times cited" and find related articles based on commonly cited works.
Sage Research Methods is an additional resource that may be very useful in developing your thesis. There are various ways to search for useful material and models for research and writing.
1) One option is to put keywords into the search box at the top
- the default order of the results will be by relevance; you can change this to title or publication date by using the drop down options from the Sort by: box
- you can also narrow your results using the faceting menu on the right: choose a particular format or kind of resource (books, reference materials, journal articles, datasets, case studies, video, etc.)
2) A second path is to choose one of the options below the search box (such as: find quick answers and definitions (reference); learn about quantitative methods; design a research project; learn from stories of real research)
- you can browse through the results, using the faceting menu on the right to narrow down further by method, discipline, or your level of education/research (undergraduate … etc.)
3) Another way to see search options is to click on the "Browse" link above the search box, which allows you to narrow by subject discipline, topic, or content type
4) Sage Research Methods also includes a project planner, which provides you with a guide to the stages of carrying out a research project (finding topic, reviewing the literature (previously conducted research in this area), developing a researchable question, finding and gathering resources or data, writing, etc.)
