SOC WEL 114: Introduction to Social Work Methods

Find a Topic or Get an Overview

Use an encyclopedia, dictionary, browse popular magazines, view a new book shelf in the library or bookstore, brainstorm with your classmates. These are a few ways to think of a topic for research. Then explore the library's digital and print resources to learn more.

How to Narrow Your Topic

"I'm writing a paper on World War II."

Often students start their research with a very general topic, even though they may realize the topic is too large to deal with in a 10-15 page paper. Faculty and librarians tell them, "You have to narrow this down." But how do you narrow a topic?

Thought experiments to try:

Think about your topic from the disciplinary perspective. In a social welfare class you might ask a question like "How did WWII affect women?" or "What social welfare programs began during WWII?"

Think about subsets or aspects of your topic. Some good aspects are:
- by place, such as a country or region
- by time period, such as a century, decade or year
- by population, such as men, women, ethnic group, youth, children or elderly

You can combine these ideas, "What were the major impacts of WWII on immigrants in the U.S, in the decade after the war?"

Take a look at our brief tutorial on topic selection and narrowing. (Slides 5-9 of the tutorial deal with topic narrowing.)

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedia of Social Work, published by Oxford, from the National Association of Social Workers -- a great starting place!
International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. This online encyclopedia provides substantive current information about key subjects in social welfare, psychology, education and the social sciences.
Comprehensive Handbook of Social Work and Social Welfare
Handbook of Psychology and Corsini Enclyclopedia of Psychology
Sage Handbooks of Qualitative and Quantitative Research in Psychology
DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)
Annual Reviews in Psychology and Annual Reviews in Clinical Psychology are good starting places -- they provide literature reviews of important and emerging areas of research.
Handbook of Social Psychology and Handbook of Adolescent Psychology

Encyclopedia of social work. / New York, National Association of Social Workers. Library has: 1929(1)-

Encyclopedia of social welfare history in North America / editors, John M. Herrick, Paul H. Stuart. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, c2005. HV12.E497 2005

Encylopedia of homelessness / Levinson, David, ed. Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage Publications, 2004. HV4493.E53 2004

Encyclopedia of child abuse / Robin E. Clark and Judith Freeman Clark with Christine Adamec ; introduction by Richard J. Gelles. New York : Facts on File, c2007. HV6626.5.C57 2007

Encyclopedia of adoption / Christine Adamec, Laurie C. Miller. New York : Facts On File c2007.HV875.55.A28 2007

Encyclopedia of measurement and statistics / editor Neil J. Salkind : managing editor, Kristin Rasmussen. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : SAGE Publications, c2007. HA29.E664 2007

Poverty in the United States : an encyclopedia of history, politics, and policy / edited by Gwendolyn Mink and Alice O'Connor. Santa Barbara, Calif. : ABC-CLIO, c2004.HC110.P6P598 2004

International encyclopedia of social policy / editor in chief, Tony Fitzpatrick ; editors, Huck-Ju Kwon ... [et al.]. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2006 HN18.3.I58 2006

Oxford encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States / Suzanne Oboler and Deena J. González, editors in chief. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2005. E184.S75 O97 2005

Dictionaries

Social work dictionary (5th ed.) / Barker, Robert L. Washington, DC : NASW Press, c2003.
HV12 .B37 2003

Dictionary of Psychology from Oxford Reference Online

Concise Oxford English Spanish Dictionary (also links to Spanish/English Dictionary)

Key words in multicultural interventions : a dictionary / Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1999.
BF637.C6 K493 1999

Blackwell dictionary of modern social thought / Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., c2003.
H41 .B53 2003

English Spanish Dictionary of Health Related Terms, California Mexico Health Initiative, 2005.

Find Books

UCB: Use OskiCat to find books related to your topic at UC Berkeley. Oskicat will show you where it's located, and will also show you the Library of Congress Subject Heading -- which can help you find material other relevant books.

UC: Not enough books at Berkeley? Use Melvyl to find more books at other campuses in the UC system. Clickon the REQUEST button (in the detailed view of a catalog record) to request the item through Interlibrary Loan.

World: Still want more? You can search thousands of libraries through WorldCat on FirstSearch and then request the material through UC e-links or directly via Interlibrary Loan.

Google Books: Library catalogs don't search inside of books. Google Books can help you identify the book you need, then click on "Find in a Library" to see if we have it.

E-Books

Springer Electronic Book Package E-books in many fields including Social Work, Social Policy and Psychology.

APA e-book collection Current e-books published by the American Psychological Association from 2009 to date.

ebrary Berkeley's largest e-book collection, with thousands of titles on a wide range of subjects, including social work, education and psychology. Some advanced ebrary features require downloading reader software.

Wiley Online Library Ebook Collection Fulltext books in social welfare and psychology from 2011.

Oxford Scholarship Online: Psychology

MIT CogNet E-books in cognitive and brain sciences published by MIT.

Find Articles

We have hundreds of research databases which help you find articles (and more) on a wide variety of topics. They are organized according to academic discipline, by name, or by type of database (dissertations, e-books, etc.)

Core resources for Social Welfare:

Social Services Abstracts
Indexes journals in social work, human services, and social policy.
PsycINFO
Core database in psychology, also includes social work.
Social Work Abstracts
Indexes hundreds of journals related to social work on a wide range of topics.
Sociological Abstracts
Core database in sociology, many overlaps with social welfare.
PubMed
Access to citations from MEDLINE and other journals in the field of medicine -- includes psychiatry, geriatrics, public health,etc.
ERIC
Interested in Social Work in the schools, or the overlap with Education? ERIC is a key source for education research and practice.
Academic Search Complete
Social Work research is often interdisciplinary, and this can be a good place to search. Includes many fulltext articles.
Family and Society Studies Worldwide
International social science research about the family and society.

UC eLinks and Citation Linker

Sometimes the database you search doesn't link to the fulltext -- it only gives the citation. Click the UC e-links button to see if Berkeley has it online, and if not, it will check for a print version. And if we don't have it at all, it lets you request it through Interlibrary Loan.

What if there isn't a UC e-links button??? Sometimes you find an article in a bibliography, a book or a footnote -- and you want to see if we have it. The Citation Linker searches through our online databases to see if it's available fulltext. If not, it sets up a search for the paper journal in Melvyl. And if we don't have it at Berkeley, it lets you request it through Interlibrary Loan.

Citation Linker

Have a citation? Go directly to the article! Use Citation Linker.

Get immediate access to journal articles, books and other publications (or request them when they are not available) by entering a title and other citation information.

When a publication is available online: The UC-eLinks window will provide a link to the publisher's web site that should contain the full text of the publication if UC (systemwide or your home campus) subscribes to the electronic version of the publication.

When a publication is not available online: The UC-eLinks window will offer other options such as the ability to check campus library holdings in the Melvyl Catalog (and where you can sometimes find that items ARE available online), or to Request the item via Interlibrary Loan (ILL) if UC (systemwide or your home campus) does not subscribe to the electronic version of the publication.

Citation Help

Citation Management.
Three citation management tools widely used at UC Berkeley are RefWorks, Endnote, and Zotero. Each organizes citations and produces quick and easy bibliographies in many citation styles, including APA 6^th. Learn about other citation and writing tools on the EDP Library's Citation Management webpage.

RefWorks is free for UC Berkeley students, faculty and staff. From many of UC’s databases, importing citations is seamless and easy. Create correctly cited bibliographies, footnotes, and in-text citations. New users can sign up at RefWorks. Find tutorials and tips for using RefWorks on the EDP Library webpage.

Zotero is a free plug-in that works exclusively with the Firefox browser. Sign up and view this tool at zotero.org.

EndNote is software that must be purchased. It’s available from UC Berkeley’s Software Central. Find tutorals and tips for using EndNote via the Library webpage.

APA Style.
Use the APA Publication Manual 6^th edition in the EDP Library. See the APA Style tab above for more information.

Widely cited journals and articles.
ISI Web of Knowledge - Social science citation index provides a "Cited Reference Search" feature which can be searched by cited author, work or year. The ISI database provides "cited by" information on its search results page. ISI's Journal Citation Reports will find a current list of most highly cited journals. It should be noted, however, that ISI is evaluating a highly selective group of journal titles. For example, only 130 education titles, 36 special education titles, and 49 educational psychology titles, a relatively small selection given the large number of journals published in education. See the journal list at ISI WOS for specific titles.

Google Scholar also provides on their initial search results screen a “cited by” link with the total number of citations. Similarly, the CSA Illumina interface provides on their search results page, "cited by" links for more recent psychology articles.

Off-campus access to library resources

You can access UCB Library resources from off campus or via your laptop or other mobile device using one of two simple methods:

Proxy Server
After you make a one-time change in your web browser settings, the proxy server will ask you to log in with a CalNet ID or Library PIN when you click on the link to a licensed resource. See the setup instructions, FAQ, and Troubleshooting pages to configure your browser.

VPN (Virtual Private Network)
After you install and run the VPN "client" software on your computer, you can log in with a CalNet ID to establish a secure connection with the campus network.

BASIC Libraries at UC

Education Psychology Library - 2600 Tolman Hall.
Circulation: (510) 642-4209. Reference: (510) 642-2475

Social Welfare Library - 227 Haviland Hall.
Circulation and Reference: (510) 642-4432

DOE Library- Central Campus
Circulation: (510) 643-4331. Reference: (510)-642-6657

Bioscience Library - 2101 Valley Life Sciences Building # 6500.
Circulation: (510) 642-2531. Reference: (510) 642-0456

Public Health Library - 1 University Hall, #7360
Circulation and Reference: (510) 642-2511