FOR SECONDARY SOURCES
 

  • handbook or companion or encyclopedia  are common words to help identify good background or overview sources.
  • criticism or interpretation are words that will bring up secondary source studies of a book, film, artwork, musical piece, play, artist or writer, etc. 
  • history is a way to get at full-length studies not just of countries or events, but also of ideas and concepts and broad subjects. 
  • debate or controversy (or controvers* to pick up variants), or contested or disputed often help you surface works that identify the "stakes" of a particular argument, action, phenomenon, etc.
  • theory or theoretical or philosophy or philosophical might help you find works in larger contexts or examined via a "lens" of some kind.

FOR PRIMARY SOURCES
 

  • narrative* or diaries or case study or interview* or memoir or even the phrase "lived experiences" might angle topics more specifically toward studies of social relationships, observations of behavior, personal reflections, explanations or first hand "testimony" of some kind.
  • For visual materials, try subject terms like posters or portraits or photographs or advertising.
  • qualitative is one way social science researchers describe their non-numeric data collection methods -- and "qualitative" generally means interviews, focus groups, observed behavior of some kind.
  • Anthropologists sometimes call their observational methods ethnography, so you might try that word (or ethnograph*)  as well.
  • proverbs is a useful subject term if you want to surface the normative wisdom or virtue ethics of a particular society; for example: proverbs, American.
  • interview is also a great word to use in newspaper searching, when you're looking for primary evidence in the form of personal stories or first-hand accounts and testimonies.
  • While a biography is technically a secondary source (a second-hand account of a life), biographies are built out of a whole host of primary sources: documents, papers, interviews, correspondence, etc.  So you might find your primary sources, sometimes, by "reverse engineering" from a secondary source.

For Topical Direction
 

  • Use the Advanced Search feature in HOLLIS to try some of the following subject headings* related to the themes for Essay 3. (Note that the use of an asterisk (*) illustrates how you can use truncation to elicit a wider range of results with a common word stem.):

*Nota bene: Subject headings may contain language that is harmful or offensive. Please see Harvard Library's statement on harmful language in library collections.


Norms and Normativity

deviant behavior

manners and customs

habitus (sociology)

social norms

Gender and Sexuality

feminity

pimps

sex role

gender expression

prostitut*

sex workers

gender and sexuality

prostitution in motion pictures

sexism

gender identity

rape

sexism and literature

gender nonconformity

rape culture

sexism in motion pictures

heterosexism

rape culture in literature

sexual behavior

homophobia

rape in literature

sexual orientation

human trafficking in literature

rape in motion pictures

sexual orientation in literature

human trafficking in motion pictures

rape in popular culture

sexuality

mail order brides

sadomasochism

transgender

masculinity

sex customs OR (sex AND social aspects)

transexual*

men

sex in literature

women

paraphilias

sex in motion pictures

 


Mental Health and Disability

developmental disabilities

mental illness

people with disabilities

disabilities

mental illness in literature

psychology, pathological

mental health

mental health in motion pictures

 


Race and Identity

discrimination in motion pictures

peoples by group name (e.g., African Americans, Chinese Americans, Dakota Indians, Bangladeshi Americans, Whites)

race in literature

colorism

prejudices

race in motion pictures

identity (psychology)

race

racism

literature and race

race discrimination in literature

 

Class, Politics, and Other

dating (social customs)

monogamous relationships

social conditions

capitalism

political aspects

social justice

discrimination

political culture

social mobility

economic conditions

political science

social stratification

elite (social sciences)

politics and government

totalitarianism

income distribution

poverty

utopias

influence (literary, artistic, etc.)

power (social sciences)

 

mate selection

social classes