Approaches to the Study of Religion in North America

Read about the process in this book:

Campbell, A., Taylor, B. & McGlade, A. (2017). Reviewing the literature. In Transforming Social Work Practice Series: Research design in social work (pp. 9-26). 55 City Road, London: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi:10.4135/9781473909618.n2

A library database is an online searchable collection of information, often in the form of references to articles, books, and book chapters (but also newspaper articles, thesis, music, etc). These examples offer a glimpse of how databases are used.

Dissertation

Tobin, S. M. (2019). Exorcism, deliverance, and psychotherapy from a catholic-christian perspective: A critical literature review. [PhD thesis, Azusa Pacific University]. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (2301893125).

Scholarly Article

Thurman, W., Moczygemba, L. R., Welton-Arndt, L., Kim, E., Hudzik, A., Corley, K., & Tormey, K. (2021). Faith-based health and social services for people experiencing homelessness in the united states: A scoping review of the literature. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 32(4), 1698-1719.

1. Tutorial: Developing a research question: for graduate students
2. Consider word variations and synonyms
   • think about how others might refer to your ideas
   • e.g, homeless OR homelessness OR unsheltered OR unstably housed OR displaced OR evicted, etc.

1. Employ search limiters (available limiters depend on the database)
   • peer reviewed, article type, date
   • e.g, in PsycInfo, can include: age group, population group, methodology
2. Identify key publications and authors
   • note citations, and cited references, repeated author names
3. Document and track everything you do in the steps above

Tutorial: Finding books in Omni
Tutorial: Requesting books from other libraries in Omni

• Start with known titles
  • Lofton, Kathryn. Consuming Religion. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2017. (Omni search for this title)
  • Finch, Martha. Religion, Food, and Eating in North America. Edited by Marie Dallam, Reid Neilson, Nora L Rubel, and Benjamin Zeller. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.7312/zell16030.

Tip: Search within ebook collections to search within the full text of eBooks (as opposed to searching titles in Omni)

• Ebook Central (Proquest)
• Academic Collection (ESBCO)

Tutorial: Finding scholarly articles on a topic

Search in Omni

• limit to "Articles" and "Peer-reviewed journals"
• article content in Omni is not chosen or curated, but dumped in, i.e, it may not have everything on a particular topic.

Databases for Religion and Culture

Other interdisciplinary subject databases that may be helpful depending on your topic:

• ERIC (education)
• Sociology Collection
• Web of Science

Other considerations

• You can "hand-search" journal publications
• There are other subject-based databases that might be relevant to your search area, such as Education or Sociology
• If you already know the title of an article, you can search for it in Omni
  • Finding an article when you only know the title

Predatory journals are a global threat. They accept articles for publication — along with authors’ fees — without performing promised quality checks for issues such as plagiarism or ethical approval. (Grudniewicz, A., Moher, D., Cobey, K. D., Bryson, G. L., Cukier, S., Allen, K., & Ardern, C. (2019). Predatory journals: no definition, no defence. Nature, 576(7786), 210+)

• Rising number of ‘predatory’ academic journals undermines research and public trust in scholarship (The Conversation, Sept. 19, 2023)
• Google News search for "predatory journals"
• International Journal of Physical Education, Sports and Health (example)
• Beall's list (wikipedia page)
• Think. Check. Submit.

Grant, M., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: an analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information and Libraries Journal, 26(2), 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-1842.2009.00848.x

• Use Sage Reference to learn about research methodologies, e.g, action research, grounded theory, or literature reviews, e.g.,
  • Flick, Uwe The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research Design. 2 vols. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2022. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529770278.

Dissertations and theses may be considered scholarly sources since they are closely supervised by a dissertation committee made up of scholars, are directed at an academic audience, are extensively researched, follow research methodology, and are cited in other scholarly work.

However, dissertations are still considered student work and are not peer-reviewed. Always clarify with your instructor as to whether you can include and cite dissertations and theses in your research.

• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

• Chicago Manual of Style