Subject and Course Guides: ANTH 3341 Anthropology Research Methods: Background Information

What is background information?

Background information provides a general overview of and context for a research topic, event, or policy. It is a great place to find important vocabulary and concepts, relevant names of people or places, and dates of specific events. Data and statistics are also considered background information and can help determine things like prevalence. What these have in common is that they give you the big picture before you start digging into the scholarly research.

These resources are especially helpful during the idea generation stage. Finding good background information on a general topic can help you turn that topic into a research question.

They will also help you determine what vocabulary and background concepts you will need to identify relevant peer-reviewed sources in the databases and identify more specific areas of your topic that you may want to research further.

Encyclopedias & Reference Sources

SAGE Research Methods This link opens in a new window
An online search tool that provides information and instruction on research methods. It is aimed at university students, researchers, and faculty and is designed to answer methods questions that arise during the various steps of the research process, including the literature search, review, research design, data collection, analysis, and write up.
SAGE Research Methods is a research methods tool created to help researchers, faculty and students with their research projects. SAGE Research Methods contains content from over 720 books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, the entire “Little Green Book”, the "Little Blue Book” series, two major works collating a selection of journal articles, and specially commissioned videos. Researchers can explore methods and concepts to help them design research projects, understand particular methods or identify a new method, conduct their research, and write up their findings. Since SAGE Research Methods focuses on methodology rather than disciplines, it can be used across the social sciences, health sciences, and more.
Gale Ebooks This link opens in a new window
Gale Ebooks (formerly named Gale Virtual Library or GVRL) provides a wealth of full-text reference and general subject books in a wide variety of subjects.
Sources offered in the GVRL include multi-volume encyclopedias, biographical collections, business plan handbooks, company histories, consumer health references and history compilations. A wide variety of subjects are covered including arts, biography, business, education, environment, history, law, medicine, multicultural, religion and science.
Oxford Reference Online Premium This link opens in a new window
Full text access to titles from Oxford University Press. The collection includes subject encyclopedias, dictionaries, and reference works in more than twenty subject areas. NOTE: Only 1 simultaneous user allowed.
Oxford Reference Online Premium brings together over 175 titles in the Oxford Companions and Oxford Dictionaries series plus the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. All of the reference titles can be searched at once. More than twenty subject areas are covered.

NOTE: Only 1 simultaneous user allowed.
International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences This link opens in a new window
This landmark work describes the state of the art in all the fields encompassed within the social and behavioral sciences
This landmark 26 volume work describes the state of the art in all the fields encompassed within the social and behavioral sciences. It presents thousands of articles that address topics within fields such as: Anthropology, Archaeology, Clinical Psychology, Community Psychology, Crime and Criminality, Demography, Developmental Psychology, Economics, Gender Studies, Geography, Health, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Justice Studies, Management, Motivational/Emotional Psychology, Personality Psychology and Self, Political Science, Psychiatry, Social Psychology, Sociology, and Urban Studies. It covers overarching topics and methodologies such as institutions and infrastructure, history of the social and behavioral sciences, ethics of research and applications, biographies, statistics, as well as integrative concepts and issues.

Finding Books

To locate books, use the library catalog and conduct an Advanced Search. Add other search terms in the additional search boxes that relate to your topic. Examples might include:

anthro*
ethno*
culture
history

You may wish to use even narrower terms, such as a particular culture or language.

Note: In many search bars, using an asterisk (*) serves as a truncation. This means that shortening the term and adding the asterisk tells the search engine than you want to find all of the various endings for the truncated term.

AV Sources

Ethnographic Video Online This link opens in a new window
Upgraded to Anthropology Resource Library
Streaming video collection for the visual study of human culture and behavior, including works by world-famous pioneers in the field. It is global in scope with previously unpublished footage from anthropologists & ethnographers.
StreaStreaming video collection for the visual study of human culture and behavior, including works by world-famous pioneers in the field. It is global in scope with previously unpublished footage from anthropologists & ethnographers.