Sociology of Medicine (Soc 340)

Reference Books Databases Tools

Note: More suggestions available on the Research Guides for broader disciplines -
 Sociology or Medicine and Health

A few key encyclopedias and dictionaries:

• Encyclopedia of Sociology - Lengthy articles that provide background information on schools of thought, prominent figures, methodology, etc., with bibliographies. 
  Main Ref. HM 425 .E5 2000, v.1-5 (2nd ed.)
• Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology - Quick definitions of major terms and concepts. 
  Main Ref. HM 425 .C36 2006
• Dictionary of Sociology (from Oxford Reference Online)  
• Encyclopedia of Population (from Gale Virtual Reference Library)
• Mosby's Medical & Nursing Dictionary - Brief definitions of medical terminology.
  Main Ref. R 121 .M89 1983
• Oxford Reference Online - Medicine - a searchable collection of medical/health reference books.
• Encyclopedia of Life Sciences - features more than 4,100 specially commissioned and peer-reviewed entries. 
• Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine (from Gale Virtual Reference Library)
• Medlineplus.gov – especially the “Health Topics”; “Medical Encyclopedia”; and “Medical Dictionary”

Research Databases 

Scholarly articles, reports, papers, etc.:

• Sociological Abstracts- A primary access point to sociology journal articles; online indexing includes 1963 and forward.  Earlier years, dating from 1953, are available in print
• MEDLINE/PubMed - A service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine that includes over 17 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s.  
• Web of Science (Citation Indexes)  -  Provides bibliographic information to scholarly journals in all disciplines. Searchable by keyword, author, journal title. Special feature: users can follow the cited references of one article to locate additional relevant sources.  
• Family & Society Studies Worldwide - indexing publications from a wide range of social science disciplines including anthropology, sociology, psychology, demography, health sciences, education, economics, law, history and social work.

Books or longer works:

• Five College Library Catalog - Books and journals, etc. available within the Valley
• WorldCat - A massive online catalog of tens of thousands of libaries combined.

Data or Statistics:

• National Center for Health Statistics - from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
• International Health Statistics - from the World Health Organization
• World Development Indicators - from the World Bank
  
  For more sources, check...
• MHC's Statistical & Data Sources guide 
• ASA's list of freely Available Data Sources

Working Tools

• UNC Writing Center’s handout on Annotated Bibliographies
• MHC's Writing & Citing Tools guide
• ASA Style Guide - Citation handbook from the American Sociological Association.
  Main Ref. HM 73 .A54 1996
  Abbreviated version online - ASA Quick Online Style Guide 
• RefWorks - web-based bibliography and citation management software

Having trouble finding what you need? Go to LITS and chat with a librarian at the Reference Desk. Or, with advance notice, set up an appointment to meet with Janet Ewing, Sociology liaison.