SOCIOL 220/220G: Last Call: The Sociology of Death and Dying
Library Resources

Research Essay
Reference Books
Library Catalogue
Journals
Databases & Articles
Internet Sites
Referencing and Plagiarism

Humour and Death. In Howarth, Glennys and Oliver Leaman, eds, Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. Routledge: London. p.253.

Subject Librarian:
Musarrat Begum

Research Essay

There are several sources you can use to help you find relevant material for your research essay.

Begin with an the introductory articles in reference books to get an overview of the subject. These will help you with keywords that you will use in the catalogue and database searching, and some articles will have selective bibliographies and discussions of important authors and theorists.

Your course outline has a list of suggested readings, and you should select books from that list that relate to your topic.

You may find it useful to read academic reviews of the books you have chosen. The databases Sociological Abstracts, JSTOR, and Project Muse are good sources for reviews. In most cases you can simply search for the book title and tick the box marked Reviews in JSTOR and Project Muse. Sociological Abstracts doesn't have a Review box, but instead just add the keyword review*.

Look at the notes and bibliographies in the books and articles that you read, especially if they are recent publications, as they will point you to more useful references.

You can find more books by searching the Library catalogue. There are some suggestions for keywords and subject headings listed below.

Journal articles can be found in the library's databases.

Reference Books

Reference Books are an excellent place to start your research. You should then go on to read more in-depth journal articles and books.

• Bryant, Clifton D., ed. 2003. Handbook of Death and Dying. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Library copies
• Bryant, Clifton D., and Dennis L. Peck, eds. 2009. Encyclopedia of Death and the Human Experience. Thousand Oaks: SAGE.
• Howarth, Glennys, and Oliver Leaman, ed. 2001. Encyclopedia of Death and Dying. Routledge: London. Library copies
• Shelton, Dinah L., ed. 2004. Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Farmington Hills: Macmillan Reference. Library copies
• Ritzer, George, ed. 2007. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Malden: Blackwell. Library copies
• Scott, John, and Gordon Marshall, eds. 2005. Oxford Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd ed, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Library copies
• Thackrah, John Richard, 2004. Dictionary of Terrorism. 2nd ed, London: Routledge.

Library Catalogue

Keywords

Search tips:

• Use a truncation symbol to find variant word endings. Use the * symbol in The Catalogue, and use ? in Voyager
  Search for medicali* to find medicalisation, medicalization, medicalized, medicalizing, etc.
• Search for phrases in quotation marks: "popular culture"
• Search for synonyms and related terms:  religion or church; capital punishment or death penalty
• Some terms might appear as a hypenated word or as a phrase: near-death or "near death"
• Use an author's name as a keyword or subject heading, as this will find literature about them as well as by them

Search examples:
death AND medicalization
death AND medicali*
durkheim AND suicide
suicide AND (church* OR religio*)
ethic? AND (organ OR organs OR "body part*") AND (donat* OR donor* OR transplant*)

Subject Headings

If keyword searches retrieve too many references, a subject heading might be better. Try the topics listed below, and if necessary you can then add more keywords or other subjects to get a shorter but more relevant list of references.

General topics often have more specific subdivisions, for example:
   Death
   Death - Religious aspects
   Death - Religious aspects - Christianity

Journals

These are some of the journals about the sociology of death. Click on the journal title to see the location of print copies in the Library and links to e-journals.

• Death Studies
• Journal of Near-Death Studies
• Omega: An International Journal for the Study of Dying, Death, Bereavement, Suicide, and Other Lethal Behaviors

Databases & Articles

To find journal articles on your topic you can use an online index or a database.

• Sociological Abstracts An index with abstracts from many social science journals.
• FindNZarticles Includes Index New Zealand INNZ (an index with abstracts from 300 New Zealand journals, magazines and newspapers) plus other indexes of New Zealand newspapers and book chapters.
• Opposing Viewpoints In Context Newspaper and journal articles, reference and statistical data, primary documents, images and websites relating to a range of social issues.
• Philosopher's Index Provides citations and abstracts to articles in philosophy journals.
• Religious Periodicals A collection of journals on religion.

More databases are listed on the Sociology resource pages.

Internet Sites

• Kearl's Guide to Sociological Thanatology
  Michael Kearl's website about the sociology of death and dying.
• Death Related Web Sites
  Links to a number of educations related sites on death and dying.
• Virtual Religion Index
  A guide to many religion-related websites, including Life and Death Issues.
• Web Genocide Documentation Centre
  Resources on genocide, war crimes and mass killing.

Referencing and Plagiarism

The Chicago Manual of Style Online

Referen©ite Academic referencing resource

The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework as a serious academic offence. The work that a student submits for grading must be the student's own work, reflecting his or her learning. Where work from other sources is used, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced. This requirement also applies to sources on the world-wide web. A student's assessed work may be reviewed against electronic source material using computerised detection mechanisms. Upon reasonable request, students may be required to provide an electronic version of their work for computerised review.

Honesty and integrity are valued in all academic activities at The University of Auckland. This website provides information about the key principles and practices underlying academic honesty, and advice and resources: Academic Honesty and Plagiarism.