How to Use these Subject Guides to the Social Sciences

The materials cited in each subject guide are organized into these five categories, presented in the same order in which they are outlined in the model above.  From discipline to discipline there may be additional headings--maps, atlases, and collections of them are important to the student of geography, for instance, and are included in the Geography subject guide.

Recommended Use

First, Selective Bibliography: It is our recommendation that the searcher use these subject guides by starting on the upper right side of Finding Aids.  That category, Selective Bibliography) stresses the inclusion of authoritative recommendations to the user about the better and best content and other finding aids that are available in the discipline.

Then, Summarizing Knowledge: Next, we recommend studying the general, summarizing knowledge about whatever the searcher is trying to find: read an encyclopedic treatment of the topic, find current, respected textbooks in the area, locate a handbook's coverage of the topic, or find a review article or chapter that treats the topic you are interested in.

Finally, the Research Information Level itself: Finally, read the actual research literature itself by using the right side of the Information level (Comprehensive Bibliographic tools) to find out what exists, and what is available in or through the OU Libraries collection . . . or available through some other academic or research library collection in the world.

Reference Materials when you need them: If you need to locate some one, some specific organization, or some specific word or concept related to that particular discipline, use the Reference Resources we have assembled for you by each discipline.

For further explanation of the model, see the following:

              Rationale for a New Freides-Based Model of Social Science Resources