Anthropology Research Guide

Anthropology is a wide-ranging field with four subfields: Cultural/Social Anthropology, Physical/Biological Anthropology, Linguistics, and Archaeology. Anthropology also overlaps with a number of other disciplines, including biology, ecology, sociology, psychology, economics, political science, women's studies and various area studies. Therefore, in anthropology, in order to do comprehensive research, it is important to think about which other disciplines are relevant to your topic.

See the Anthropology How To guide if you are a new researcher or undertaking your first project in anthropology.

General Reference Sources:

Reference sources such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, or guides to the literature are a great way to find background information on a topic as well as build a vocabulary for searching in the discipline.

• Anthropology - Oxford Bibliographies Online: Guide to scholarly literature in anthropology, subdivided into articles by established scholars covering major categories of research, with corresponding bibliographies of recommended resources. Also see Oxford Reference Online.

• Sage Research Methods Online: A research methods tool created to help researchers, faculty and students with their research projects. It links over 100,000 pages of SAGE’s book, journal, and reference content. Explore methods concepts to help you design research projects, understand particular methods or identify a new method, conduct research, and write up findings.

• Gale Virtual Reference Library: Full-text, cross-searchable online library of several interdisciplinary reference books.

• Reference Universe: Access to over 15 million authoritative citations to 11,000 specialized print and electronic encyclopedias.

Click on the title to get to the catalog record. To find additional handbooks and more recent publications, search for anthropology handbook or archeology handbook as the keyword in the library catalog.

Archaeology

Biological Anthropology

Cultural Anthropology

Click on the title to get to the catalog record. To find additional and more recent resources, search for anthropology fieldwork or archeology fieldwork as the keyword in the library catalog.

• Try different keywords and search terms using different databases and catalogs. Every database is different so some keywords and search terms work for one database but not for another.
• Expand your search:
  • Include synonyms and plural/singular forms of keywords. Separate synonyms by OR. Separate the synonyms from the rest of the words by using parentheses.
  • Use truncation symbols (or wildcard symbols) to include variations of your search terms (e.g. scien$ will search for sciences, scientific, scientfically, etc.).
• Narrow your search:
  • Combining different concepts/search terms with AND
  • Use the limit functions of the database. These are often located on the left side of the results page, or look in the database's Help menu to discover the limit functions it offers. Possibilities include limiting by date, language, type of article, etc.
• Keep a record of which search terms worked and in which databases. This can keep you from repeating your steps.
• Did you find an article you really like? Then, read the cited references (a.k.a. bibliography, end notes, footnotes) to find similar articles. This can bias your project by focusing on only one side of an issue so use caution with this method.
• Ask for help. Ask a librarian for search tips. Also, use the help screens in the databases for instructions and tips.