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 |