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GEO 322 - Research Methods in Geography

Library Spaces: Information about places in the library for individuals or groups to study or prepare for presentations

Dictionaries

Specialized books such as the following titles can provide background information on your topic or help you with definitions of words you hear in class but do not understand. Note all of the different call numbers for geography and geology.

Click here for online dictionaries in Geography

Dictionary of Geography, Malcolm Skinner, 1999
ref G63 S50

Dictionary of Physical Geography, David S.G. Thomas & Andrew Goudie, ed., 2000.
ref GB10 .D53

Dictionary of Geography, Susan Mayhew, 2004

ref. G63 .M39

Earth Science, James A. Woodhead, ed., 2001
ref QE28 .E12

Dictionary of Human Geography, R.J. Johnston, ed.,  2000
ref GF4 D52 

Facts on File Dictionary of Earth Science, John O.E. Clark and Stella Stiegeler, ed., 2000.
ref QE5 .F318

Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Environmental Change, John A. Matthews, ed., 2001
ref GE10 .E534

Encyclopedia of Environmental Studies, William Ashworth and Charles E. Little, ed., 2001
ref TD9 .A84

Journals, Magazines, Newspapers

The databases listed below are subject and author indexes to journals, magazines and newspapers. For more choices go to the University Libraries home page, click on Databases, then on the starting letter of the database or department name.

Tips: 
-When researching your topic, try a variety of subject headings for the same concept  .e.g. for information on salaries you may have to use wages or earnings. Schools may be under the broader category of education while unemployment might appear as a subdivision of employment or labor.
-Click here for tips on using the search connectors AND, OR, and NOT in your search strategy.

You may wish to combine your subject with terms such as statistics or data in parentheses.  e.g. school violence and (statistics or data)

REMEMBER: To get to the full text of the journal article you must go through the Library's web pages. We have paid for access to the journals. You cannot go to the publisher's page to get an article. Use Journal Finder if you have the name of the journal and a specific citation.

Selected General Journal, Magazine and Newspaper Databases

These databases index a range of publications from popular to scholarly. If the database allows this, consider checking the box limiting a search to scholarly or refereed journals.

EBSCO Databases

• Use this link to search any combination of over 20 EBSCO databases simultaneously
  
     Academic Search Premier
  
     --Abstracts and much full text for over thousands of popular and scholarly journals
     --Interdisciplinary
     --1984+     
  
    Business Source Premier
  
    --Full text for thousands of popular and scholarly business and economics journals
    --1922+ 
  
    Newspaper Source Plus
  
    --Full text for hundreds of U.S. and international newspapers plus newswires and columns
    --Graphics from the articles are not provided
    --Most titles begin from the late 1990's
  
    Environment Complete

• Includes some full text articles from a couple thousand magazines and journals
• Interdisciplinary
• Dates of coverage: varies by title

• General database of thousands of popular and scholarly English-language journals in many different disciplines
• About half the items are full text
• 1980+

• Citations and abstracts on global public policy and social issues, especially concerning agriculture, economics, defense, international relations, and the environment
• Covers periodicals, books, hearings, reports, gray literature, publications from all levels of government, Internet resources, and other publications from 120 countries and in many languages.
• Links to web resources and publisher websites
• 1972+ but archival database dates from 1915

Lexis-Nexis

The "Legal" tab includes legal news, law review articles, state and federal case law, state and federal statutory law (e.g. General Statutes of North Carolina ), and federal regulations (from government agencies).

Databases More Specific to Geography

• This U.S. Dept of Transportation library collects books, documents, and articles from public, academic, and private organizations
• Subject coverage: transportation policy, research, operations, technology and transfer activities, etc.
• Check The University Libraries' online catalog for books and documents and Journal Finder for articles
• In some cases links are provided to the document

• Full text of hundreds of scholarly and technical journals covering science, technology, medicine, and to a lesser extent, social sciences
• Useful for earth sciences, environment, ecology, remote sensing, GIS, and some aspects of urban planning
• Indexes Journal of Urban Economics; Journal of Transport Geography; Transportation Research: Parts A-F; Transport Policy; and Regional Science and Urban Economics
• Has a "Cited by" feature similar to that described in Web of Science below
• 1995 to present but varies by title

U.S. and N.C. Government Statistical Sources

American FactFinder

• Census Bureau data on the internet
• Offers prepackaged population, economic, housing, and geographic data products and user-selected data tables and maps from Census 2000, the 1990 Census of Population and Housing, the 1997 and 2002 Economic Censuses, the Population Estimates Program, annual economic surveys and the American Community Survey
• Data may be available in the form of maps, tables, and reports.
• Counties --> Minor civil divisions (townships) --> Census tracts --> Block Group --> Census Blocks
• More information about Summary File 3
• More information about Summary File 4

• Statistical data on North Carolina
• Statistics on population and housing, vital statistics, social and human services, energy, government, employment and income, etc.
• Data comes from state and federal agencies. Good one stop shop for basic data needs on NC.

• Easy access to statistics and information produced by more than 100 US Federal Government agencies

• Some federal publications and most North Carolina documents can be identified using our online catalog.  The most valuable resource for finding statistics in U.S. and N.C. documents is the Documents staff.  Ask them for assistance.
• Documents has compiled a list of local, North Carolina, United States, and international websites on a variety of issues.  From the beginning page, click on the government level of your choice.  Several of these sites are statistical in nature. In particular the link within U.S. Government to Federal Information by Subject will lead you to many useful statistical websites.

General Sources

Statistical Warehouse (general statistics database)

• 70,000+ statistical data series on many topics including population and demographics, economics, social indicators, health and mortality, voting and elections, geography, intellectual property, social services, and libraries.
• Covers the United States, states, counties, cities, and other Census-designated places (over 30,000 places total)
• Data can be ranked, downloaded into Excel, or formatted into a PDF file for printing
• Dates of coverage vary but some data available as far back as 1790

ReferenceUSA (14 million companies)

• Covers 14 million U.S. companies, 3.7 million international companies, 120 million U.S. residences, and 650,000 physicians and dentists.
• Complex searches, based on any combination of many values, are possible.
• Data for U.S. companies can be exported to a spreadsheet.

SimplyMap (visual representation of data)

• Web-based mapping database for developing thematic maps -- and reports -- using thousands of demographic, business, and marketing data variables
• Create an account the first time you use the database
• Covers census block-groups, census tracts, zip codes, cities, counties, states, and the entire United States
• Use the "Create Query" tab to combine two or more variables, ex. income data and racial data
• For help using this database, please contact Lynda Kellam or Steve Cramer
• Quick start tutorial
• SimplyMap Quick Reference (PDF, 600K)
• SimplyMap Variable List (PDF, 2,100K)

Data Services at UNCG

• Information about additional statistical and data sources both available through the library and free on the web
• Includes tuturials on using SPSS and SAS

Business

American Salaries and Wages Survey
ref HD4973.A440

Business Statistics of the United States
ref HC101.A13122

Estats: Measuring the Electronic Economy

International business, trade & financial resources

Economic and financial sources

UNCG Business resources page with links to many statistical databases

Housing statistics

Home prices

Crime

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
ref HV7245.N37b    Online version

Crime statistics from the federal government

Demographics

Demographics USA
ref HF5438.S870

North Carolina State Data Center
Try LINC or Census Lookup

American FactFinder

FedStats

North Carolina state and area home pages

Education

Condition of Education
ref L 112 .B377a     Online Version

Rankings of the States
ref LA212 .N36a

Digest of Education Statistics
ref L112 .A35     Online Version

National Center for Education Statistics

Federal Information Sources for Education

Environment

 

Online climate data & weather observations

 

Federal Information Sources for Environment

Health

Health United States

Links to selected health statistics

Health Care State Rankings
ref RA407.3 .H423

Links to websites with federal health information

North Carolina health information

Guilford County Health Dept. statistics

International

Demographic Yearbook (United Nations)
ref HA17 .D45

Statistical Yearbook (United Nations)
ref HA12.5 .U63

United Nations statistics

Politics

America Votes
ref JK1967 .A8

Roper Center For Public Opinion Research

• Large archive of public opinion polling data from major polling organizations and media sources.
• Primarily focused on public opinion polls in the United States, but includes some additional countries.
• iPoll contains nearly 400,000 questions and responses from national public opinion surveys.
• For assistance with Roper Center, please contact Lynda Kellam

Voting and Registration Data

2008 Election Results

Transportation

U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics

Transportation statistics

Journey to Work statistics

GasBuddy.com   Find the lowest gas prices

 

American FactFinder

• Use the detailed tables to isolate travel time to work
  1. From the main page, click on Data Sets on the left hand side.
  2. Click on American Community Survey.
  3. The first available year is 2005. Choose 2005 and then where it says "Select from the following:" choose Detailed Tables.
  4. From this page, isolate your Geographic Division by clicking on "Select a geographic type" then choose your geographies.
  5. Click on Next.
  6. Now, choose your variables. The easiest way is to use the tab "by keyword" located at the top. This allows you to search for terms. We used ?time? which gave us several tables detailing the time of commute in relation to a variety of socioeconomic characteristics.

United States

FedStats

State Rankings: A Statistical View of the 50 United States
ref HA 203. U17

Historical Statistics of the United States, 1790 to 1970 (2 vols.)
Stacks HA 215 .D6     Online version

Historical Statistics of the United States: earliest times to the present (5 vols.)

ref HA 202 H57 2006

Almanac of the 50 States: Basic Data profiles with Comparative Tables
ref HA 203 .A5

Statistical Abstract of the United States
ref HA 202 Online Version

State and Local Finances by Level of Government and by State

State Government Tax Collections

Statistics Websites

Statistical Sources on the Web a website from The University of Michigan is particularly useful. Categories display alphabetically, for example Campaign Finances, Elections, and Public Opinion.

The Reference Department has compiled a short list of websites providing access to various statistics. 

Use an Internet search engine like Alta Vista, Google, or Dogpile and type in your topic, e.g. recreation and statistics.  Find a list of web search tools 

University Libraries Online Catalog

In keyword searching, the computer hunts for all of your words in the title, subject or notes lines of the database.  A subject search will tell the computer to look for your terms only in the subject headings for that book.  Always use keyword searching if you want to combine terms using or or and.  For example, if you were looking for books on whether crime is affected by poverty, try the following search strategy:  (crime or violence) and (poor or poverty) and (statistics or data)

APA Citation Style

APA Examples from the 6th edition, 2010.

Text of an electronic journal article retrieved via a DOI number:

Smith, W.C. (1993). Role of early supervisory experience in supervisor performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78(4), 443-449.

    doi:10.1037/002-9432.76.4.482

Text of an electronic article without a DOI number and using the URL:

Painter, J. (2008). Cartographic anxiety and the search for regionality. Environment and Planning A, 40, 342-361. Retrieved from

      http://www.envplan.com/epa/fulltext/a40/a38255.pdf

Article from a print or microfilm journal:

VandenBos, G., Knapp, S., & Doe, J. (2001). Role of reference elements in the selection of resources by psychology

      undergraduates. Journal of Bibliographic Research, 5(2) , 117-123.

Page Author: Nancy Ryckman
Geography Librarian