WGST 108/WRIT 125:
The Social Construction of Gender
Fall 2009 · Professor Nancy Marshall

Contents:

• Find background information
• Find books
• Find articles
• Find even more sources
• Evaluating what you find
• Relevant research guides

• Annual Reviews- helpful overview essays on sociological, psychological, and anthropological topics, with extensive bibliographies
  • Annual Review of Sociology
  • Annual Review of Anthropology
  • Annual Review of Psychology
• Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society
• Encyclopedia of Gender and Society
• Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and Society
• Encyclopedia of Social Theory
• Encyclopedia of Sociology
• Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology
• Encyclopedia of Women and Gender: Sex similarities and differences and the impact of society on gender
• Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America
• Girlhood in America - Clapp Ref HQ 777 .G5745 2001
• Men and masculinities : a social, cultural, and historical encyclopedia - Clapp Ref HQ1090.3 .M436 2004
• Women's Studies Encyclopedia

Use the Wellesley library catalog to find books, videos, and journals (not individual articles).

• if our copy is checked out, click on to the right of the title to request a book quickly (2-4 days)
• Search WorldCat to find material we don’t own, click on and request through ILL (interlibrary loan)
• In a hurry? Get a BLC card and borrow the book directly from a nearby library

• SOCIndex with full text - scholarly articles from a sociological perspective
• Web of Science - scholarly articles in a broad range of social science disciplines, "reverse footnotes"
• AnthroSource - full text of the 15 key American Anthropological Association (AAA) journals
• Women's Studies International - indexes articles on women's and gender studies, and feminist studies
• Academic Search Complete - articles from scholarly and popular sources, in many disciplines
• Find more databases on related research guides or on the Databases A - Z page

• Google Scholar - excellent tool for interdisciplinary topics that "fall through the cracks" of databases - click on "Find It @ Wellesley" to link directly to our databases if we have the full text, or to request through Interlibrary Loan if we don't

Find more sources

• Start with a keyword search to loacte items on your topic, then use subject headings (under the Full Record tab in catalog records, included with article abstracts in some databases) to find other books on that topic.

• These subject headings may be useful in your research:
  • sex role united states
  • women united states social conditions
  • women in [fill in the blank: engineering, mass media, medicine, motion pictures, popular cutlure, science, etc.]
  • women on television
  • masculinity
  • femininity

• Consult bibliographies or footnotes at the end of books and articles

• When you find a promising article in Web of Science, remember to check for "Cited References", "Times Cited" and related articles
  

Critically evaluate what you find

Criteria to keep in mind when choosing and using soures:

• Accuracy - Does the author cite her/his sources and are they legitimate?
• Authority - Who wrote the source? Are they credible?
• Objectivity - Does the author have a bias, political or commercial or persuasive?
• Currency - Is this information new or based on outdated sources? Can you tell how current it is?

• Women's Studies Research Guide
• Sociology Research Guide
• Psychology Research Guide

Wellesley College Library • WCIS • Alana Kumbier • last modified: October 14, 2009