Social Issues Research

Choose a topic that matters to you! You will find below three information sources for your research. But first, after choosing a topic that interests you, please familiarize yourself with the following source:

Social Issues in America: An Encyclopedia

This new reference source offers up-to-date articles, web sites and images:
As an Encyclopedia you will find it in our reference area. Call number: R 361.973 SOC

Please look at this source for all your social issues research. It is accessible from home; the password is available from Ms. Rogers. It is avaliable 24/7 and offers web links and images as well as updated articles.

After working with this source, you may want to look at the following web sites, books and databases:

1. Web Sites

2. Books in the DHS library on your topic.

3. Databases with information on your topic.

Use the Library catalog to search by "keyword" or "subject" for print material.

To browse a list of recent material in the DHS Library on "Social Issues,"look on the DHS Library Catalog >under the Categories Sidebar in the Left column > Select "Social Issues ."

Our catalog can be viewed on the Internet, from any computer at home or at school, at http://library.dedham.k12.ma.us.

It is often helpful to skim the Table of Contents and Index of individual titles to see if they will be useful for your research. Here are a few titles of special interest:

• 331.1309 Affirmative Action , 2007. Arguments for and against race-based preferences.

• 956.9405 Arab-Israeli Conflict, 2007. "Open for Debate."

• 394.1 Sch Chew on This: Everything You Don't Want to Know About Fast Food , 2007. Are McDonalds and other restaurants to blame for obesity and other American health issues?.

• What's here : For information on issues such as gun control, affirmative action, the death penalty, school violence, and similar topics, there are more than 470 full-text magazines and newspapers, plus a small number of reference books. There are many other magazines and newspapers in the database that are not full-text.

• Be patient : if the first few results don't look of interest, keep reading down the page! There are almost always some useful articles on most topics. Improvise as you go: if you are not getting enough good results, look for new keywords or subject tags in the articles you do find.

• Layout, help with searching: see HELP BOX at top of page + watch for TABS at the top of the page + DROP-DOWN MENUS next to SEARCH BOXES + SIDEBAR SEARCH SUGGESTIONS next to RESULTS.

• Not all the articles are "full-text," so check the box to limit articles to "full-text" only.

• Think of terms to use as keywords for your topic.

• " Brainstorm " for search terms that commonly describe your topic: if you are searching for "global warming," you will want to think of other terms such as "climate change."

• If you are searching for "death penalty," don't forget that "death penalty" is also referred to as "capital punishment."

• Combining terms will often retrieve the best results: OR, AND, NOT (Use the drop-down box to set.)

• "OR" gets you more results . Use "OR" when you want to search for similar terms or phrases at the same time.

  BOX 1 "global warming"

  OR

  BOX 2 "climate change"

• "NOT" eliminates topics . Use "NOT" sparingly: it often has unintended consequences. To search for articles on hurricanes, but eliminate the many articles on hurricane "Katrina," try this strategy:

• USE TABS WHEN RESULTS COME BACK : Articles are grouped by type of material; use the tabs to move from one type of material to another.

• MAGAZINES TAB > articles from general interest magazines, such as Newsweek , Time , People, New York Times Upfront, National Geographic, New Yorker, and many others.

• NEWS TAB >use to retrieve articles from many newspapers and newswires (but not all the articles in the New York Times or any articles in the Boston Globe , which must be searched separately in other DHS databases.

• MULTIMEDIA TAB >includes transcripts and podcasts, usually from National Public Radio.

• ACADEMIC JOURNALS TAB >includes articles from peer-reviewed and academic journals.

• BOOKS TAB >may also have material of interest, such as Congressional Research information or statistics from the World Almanac .

• It is sometimes useful to narrow results by document type. The choices are found in the yellow column to the left of the results.Depending on what results you get, you may see these choices:

• " Editorial " or " Letter to the Editor " document type: Are you looking for others' opinions about your topic ?

• " Cover Story " document type: Are you looking for major stories , stories that were featured on the cover?

• " Interview " document type: will identify interviews mentioning your topic."

• "Critical essay " document type for an in-depth exploration of a topic.

• There are many other document types; the choices vary under each document type based on the results retrieved .

• Be aware that the database is not always consistent in its description of document types: not every cover story is tagged "cover story" etc

To retrieve information from this database from home, have your Dedham Public Library card handy, and click here for HOME ACCESS. You will need to select PowerSearch from the databases list, once you are logged in.

Last Updated 12/17/07/L.Davies