Database Tutorials

SocINDEX with Full Text offers comprehensive coverage of sociology, encompassing all sub-disciplines and closely related areas of study.

Database Features:

• Contains abstracts and full text articles for over 3,000 journals dating as far back as 1895.
• Features more than 25,000 author profiles covering the most prolific, most cited and most frequently searched for authors in the database. Each profile includes biographical data and bibliographic information, which together allows you to quickly see an author's areas of expertise and focus.

Main Subjects Included:

• Ethnic and Racial Studies
• Gender Studies
• Criminal Justice
• Sociology
• Social Work

Navigate to the SocINDEX with Full Text Database
Library Home Page ► A to Z Database List ► SocINDEX w/Full Text

1. Enter your search terms / keywords. (To search for a phrase, put the words into quotation marks).
2. The Search Modes and Expanders section provides options that broaden your search results. Use these sparingly, as you broaden your search the number of results might become overwhelming, or they might be too vague. Best utilized in the beginning stages of research, for example, when trying to decide on a research topic and you want to know what resources/items/materials are available. 
   • Apply related words
   • Also search within the full text of the articles
   • Apply equivalent subjects
3. Limit your search results:
   • Full Text: Check this box to limit results to include only materials available in Full Text. Helpful when doing last-minute research and you don't have time to wait for interlibrary loan requests. This limiter may drastically reduce the number search results.
   • Scholarly (peer-reviewed) Journals: Check this box to ensure your search results only include items from scholarly journals. This eliminates the popular magazines and newspapers.
   • Date of Publication: Only want resources published after 2015? This is where you make that happen!
   • Publication Type: Academic Journal, Periodical, Reference Book, etc...
   • Document type: looking for materials in a specific format? Choose from Abstract, Article, Book, Chapter, & more.
4. Click "Search"

In the following example we used the keywords adolescents AND trauma, while limiting the results to include only Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journal articles

From the results page you are able to:

• Use the Refine Results section to drill down further into the search results
• Download Full Text PDF or view Linked Full Text online (when available)
• Look for the article in one of our other databases by using the Full Text Finder link
• Use PlumX Metrics to view the research metrics, such as how often the article has been downloaded, cited, shared or even talked about on social media.
• Request items not available in our collections, using the InterLibrary Loan (Illiad Wolfgram) link
• Search Widener University Catalog (WebPAC) link, which will tell you if the library has the item in the print serials collection
• Click the Article Title to view the Detailed Record

The Detailed Record & Full Text Online

Accessing the electronic versions of articles through our online databases, offers you additional features and functionality that is not available in print, such as:

• Links to additional author(s) work, scholars often publish several articles on the same topic.
• Direct links to additional journal issues/volumes and the option to search within that particular journal.
• Content links to navigate to specific sections/topics within the article
• Hyperlinked search terms to broaden or narrow your search

Downloaded PDF Documents

The PDF documents you will download from this database are images of the original print version and will look exactly the same as the print version.

They will include:

• Original page numbers
• Graphs, tables, and charts
• Full list of references (Scholarly Peer Reviewed Journals)