Guides: SAAJ: Home

Librarian

Jaimie Beth Colvin

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Appointment times don't match your availability? no problem email me and we will find a time that works.

Subjects: IP Courses, Social Work, Sociology, Theater Arts, Women's Studies

News

New York Times (NYTimes.com)
**Access requires logging in with a NYTimes.com account. Register using your Pepperdine email address here. For more information, visit our Guide. ** With NYTimes.com Passes, you have full access to the extensive breaking news, world news, and multimedia of The New York Times without needing your own subscription. Enjoy full access to NYTimes.com, INYT.com and NYT mobile apps from any device. Articles printed prior to 1980 are available by searching NYTimes.com.
Los Angeles Times
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Covers 1985 to current date.

General Information

Gale Virtual Reference Library
Access to encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. Titles can be searched alone, by subject, or all titles can be searched together.
Biography in Context
Provides biographical information on more than 528,000 people throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas.

Some 50,000 new and/or updated biographies are added each year, as well as daily status updates of existing subjects
American National Biography
Access to portraits of more than 18,700 men and women, updated quarterly with new and revised entries.
CQ Researcher
Provides access to the most current and controversial issues of the day with complete summaries, insight into all sides of the issues, bibliographies and more, published weekly. Each single-themed, 12,000-word report is researched and written by a seasoned journalist, professionally fact-checked, and footnoted to facilitate further research. A feature called Hot Topics provides shorter reports on 20 of the most popular subjects. CQ Researcher's Archive goes back to 1923 and includes reports from its predecessor publication, Editorial Research Reports.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context
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A complete one-stop source for information on social issues. Users have access to viewpoint articles, topic overviews, statistics, primary documents, links to websites, interactive maps, videos, streaming audio, and full-text magazine and newspaper articles.

From immigration to stem cells to texting-while-driving, Opposing Viewpoints in Context delivers 13,000+ pro/con views, 1,000+ court case overviews, and thousands more topic overviews, biographies and profiles.

Finding Articles

Academic Search Complete
*** This is a good database to START your research because it has articles on every topic. ***

Subject Specific Databases:

Sociological Abstracts
This database abstracts and indexes the international literature of sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.
Atla Religion Database
Includes major theology and religious journals reflecting all major faiths, denominations and language groups. Beginning in 1949 although indexing for some journal titles extends back into the nineteenth century.
Gender Watch
Databases that focus on women's issues and sometimes minority issues.
Communication & Mass Media Complete
Journals in communication, mass media, and other closely-related fields of study.

News - if you need primary sources or your person is currently active you may find news articles and magazine exposè helpful

Evaluating Sources

Scholarly v. Popular

A scholarly publication is one in which the content is written by experts in a particular field of study - generally for the purpose of sharing original research or analyzing others' findings. Scholarly work will thoroughly cite all source materials used and is usually subject to "peer review" prior to publication.

POP aim to inform a wide array of readers about issues of interest and are much more informal in tone and scope. Examples include general news, business and entertainment publications such as Time Magazine, Business Weekly, Vanity Fair.

Note, special interest publications which are not specifically written for an academic audience are also considered "popular" i.e., National Geographic, Scientific American, Psychology Today.

A Popular and Scholarly take on the same subject...

Look at the attached articles from Peace and Conflict Studies and National Geographic about Ivory funding terror. how are similar, how are they different?

National Geographic

Peace and Conflict Studies
The Political Economy of Ivory as a Conflict Resource

Research Assignments

Banks: Select a leader of social movement.

People (use biographical information to learn about the movement)

-Ayaan Hirisi Ali
-Martin Luther King
-César Chávez

Movement (use information about the movement to learn about the activists)

The Labor Movement 1930s
The Civil Rights Movement 1955-1968
The Anti-War Movement 1965-1973
The Environmental Movement 1950s- Present
The Temperance Movement 1851-1933

Satchel:

Paper 2: Choose an issue relate to social justice and persuade the reader that she/he should care about this issue. Make a strong case for your argument.

Research Paper: In this you will choose an activist from a major American/International social movement and locate that person within the movement. Your paper will be both analysis of the movement (its major themes and struggles) as well as a way to spotlight ways in which the spiritual journey of the person influenced his/her activism.