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SOCI/SOCW 4362: Social Research

Purpose of this Guide

The information in these pages will help you:

  • find and evaluate articles in scholarly journals
  • properly format and cite your sources for your paper and presentations
  • Contact librarians for research assistance.

Research vs. Literature Review

Much of the writing you have done in the past based on finding and summarizing scholarly sources has been called research. That kind of library research is more formally called a literature review. In this class you will be doing hands-on research, and using the literature you find to help you formulate your project and compare your results to the results of others.

A literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic. For futher information, please see UCSC's guide to writing a literature review

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