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Social Science Index Lesson

In the introduction to the Social Sciences Index we discover that it indexes English language material from the fields of anthropology, area studies, community health and medical care, criminal justice and criminology, economics, family studies, geography, gerontology, international relations, law, minority studies, planning and public administration, policy sciences, political science, psychiatry, psychology, social work and public welfare, sociology, urban studies, women's studies, and related subjects. As we can see, social science covers a rather large area of study.

Looking in the 1996-1997 volume of the Social Sciences Index we find subject entries for "Bioengineered foods" and "Plant genetics" but there are no articles listed under these headings. This is understandable given the scope of the index--these subject categories do not lend themselves overly to a social science perspective. However, if we stopped here we would miss some important information. We must think of another way to approach our topic. Our chosen research topic deals with food, and food is very often examined from sociological, anthropological and political perspectives. So let's take a look to see if there are any good articles indexed under the subject heading "Food."

We see a number of cross-reference headings and then we see a subheading for "Food-Biotechnology." The two articles listed under this heading may be of interest to us. One article deals with issues related to the labeling of foods derived from biotechnology, and the other focuses on the controversy caused by the importation of American genetically engineered beans into Europe. The first article comes from a political science journal (Political Life Science), the second article comes from an economics journal (Economist). The first subject entry in the right hand column also looks promising--"Food adulteration and inspection."

We have gathered quite a few articles from these three indexes (Readers' Guide, General Science Index, and Social Sciences Index). We could stop here. But there is another periodical index that is worth looking at called the Alternative Press Index. Press the "Continue" button below or click on the Alternative Press link in the Navigation Menu.