SOCY121 - Baker
Are You Off Campus?
You can access most of the databases, full-text/PDF articles, and e-books available through FLITE from your home or work with your MyFSU username and password. If you don't have this information, you can look it up at TAC's ID lookup. Please read the section on Off-Campus Database Access for more information on using FLITE materials outside of the Big Rapids campus.
Finding Books
Books and book chapters can often provide you with a broad overview of a topic, so they are useful when you are just getting learning about your topic and need a basic, general introduction. Print books are available in the the circulating collection of the library; online books, or e-books, are also available through FLITE. Use the Online Catalog to locate both print and e-book titles.
Books are located on the lower level of FLITE as well as the first, second, and third floors. Look at the Maps for FLITE Floors or ask a librarian for more help locating your item.
Finding Journal Articles
Use journal articles when you need to locate the most current information on a topic, when you need peer-reviewed information, or when your topic is very narrow or specific. Article databases are the best sources to find these articles and a vast majority of the articles you find are available full-text, online in one or another of FLITE's article databases. There are several general and multidisciplinary databases as well as many subject-specific databases which may be helpful for finding material on your topic.
General Databases
- Academic OneFile
Includes articles from over 10,000 journals covering science and technology, social sociences, and the humanities. Includes the full-text of The New York Times (1995 to present). Most articles are full-text.
General OneFile
Includes articles from over 11,500 journals, The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and over 124,000 NPR audio files
and transcripts (1990 to present). About half of the articles are full-text.
Wilson Select Plus
Includes articles from over 2,000 journals particularly in the sciences, humanities, education, and business.
Sociology Databases
- Sociology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection
Includes 37 complete, full-text journals published by SAGE and participating societies covering subjects such as childhood, contemporary and comparative sociology, classical sociology, consumer culture, ethnic and gender studies, leisure and labor studies, social theory, the sociology of sport, and labor studies. Every article is available full-text.
Social Science Abstracts
Includes citations from over 600 journals in the areas of anthropology, economics, geography, law, political science, psychology, and sociology.
PsycINFO and PsycArticles
"PsycINFO provides access to international literature in psychology and... from an array of disciplines related to psychology such as
psychiatry, education, business, medicine, nursing, pharmacology, law, linguistics, and social work....The sources include over 1,800
professional journals, chapters, books, reports, theses and dissertations, published internationally."
Getting the Article
If HTML or PDF full-text options are available from your results list, click the link to go directly to the full-text of that article.
If full text is not an option:
Click on the Find It button to see how the article is available. A new window will open with one or more of the following options:
- full-text options - there may be more than one; choose any one by clicking on the Go button to be taken to the full-text article in another FLITE database
- local holdings information - FLITE owns the journal in print or microfiche/film
- interlibrary loan (ILL) - ILL may be your only option; it can take a few days to get the article
Find a Specific Journal or Article
Do you need to locate articles from a specific journal? Do you already have a citation? Use the Find Journals search to find a specific journal title at FLITE. This will help you locate journals in FLITE regardless their format: online, print, or microfilm, and will help you determine whether or not the journal is available from the the library. If the journal is not available in FLITE, you will need to request the article through interlibrary loan (ILL). Remember to search for the journal title, not the article title.
Popular or Scholarly?
Is the article authoritative and scholary? Is it from a peer-reviewed source? For college-level research, you most often need scholarly resources. Scholarly journals, unlike magazines, usually report research undertaken by scholars and researches in a particular field of study. Articles in scholarly journals tend to be long, include a description of the research methodology, and include citations, or references. Sometimes you may need to find peer-reviewed, or refereed articles. These are articles that have been reviewed by a panel of experts in the particular field before the article is even accepted for publication.
For more information, see FLITE's Guide to Popular vs. Scholarly Periodicals.
For more information on this topic, you can also take a look at UC Berkeley's guide to Critical Evaluation of Resources for more ideas to help you evaluate the articles that you find.
Many of the article databases allow you to easily limit your search to peer-reviewed articles while others do not. To verify the status of your journal as peer-reviewed, you can use Ulrich's Periodical Direcotry. For more information on this resource, see the link above for FLITE's Guide to Popular vs. Scholarly Periodicals.
Plagiarism
Ferris' policy on plagiarism states "A student must not adopt or reproduce ideas, words, or statements of another person without appropriate acknowledgment. A student must give credit to the originality of others and acknowledge indebtedness whenever he or she quotes or paraphrases another person’s words, either oral or written and whenever he or she borrows facts, statistics, or other illustrative material, unless the information is common knowledge."
Plagiarism is not only the blatant act of cheating by purchasing a term paper or turning in a project done by someone else but is often unintentional occurring whenever you use someone else's ideas or words without giving them credit.
FLITE's Online Tutorial, PILOT, provides these four tips to avoid Plagiarism:- Take clear, accurate notes about where you found specific ideas
- Write down the complete citation information for each item you use
- Use quotation marks when directly stating another person's words
- Always credit original authors for their information and ideas
For more information about Plagiarism:
Ferris State University Writing Center's guide to plagiarism
Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It (from Indiana Univeristy)
Citation Style Guides
Whenever you are quoting or using information from a source, you must credit or cite that source. Failure to do so is plagiarism which can lead to expulsion from the University.
There are many guides available to help you with source citation.
APA Style
FLITE's Citation Style Guide:
APA (PDF)...
APA List of References
(from Diana Hacker's Research and Documentation Online)
APA Formatting and Style Guide (from The OWL at Purdue University)
MLA Style
FLITE's Citation Style Guide: MLA (PDF)...
MLA List of References
(from Diana Hacker's Research and Documentation Online)
MLA Formatting and Style Guide (from The OWL at Purdue University)
Copies of the full-length APA manual (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed.) and MLA Handbook (MLA handbook for writers of research papers) are found in the Ready Reference section on the first floor of the library near the Oval Information Desk.
Contact: Stacy Anderson / Email / Phone: 231-591-3635 / Office: FLITE 140C
Don't forget, you are welcome to come to the Oval Information Desk and ask for help any time. You can also call us 231-591-3602 or chat with us.
Last update: May 27, 2009