SOCW 4303 (Dr. Melody Loya): Social Services to Children and Families

Purpose: To acquaint you with materials in Cornette Library that will make research for your social work assignments easier.

Reference Sources

Excellent place to start research.
Provide background information.
Include basic information sources like dictionaries, encyclopedias, bibliographies, chronologies, and research guides.

Provide in-depth, scholarly articles, focused on a specific subject or discipline. Often include bibliographies.

The Blackwell encyclopaedia of social work: HV12 .B53 2000 (Reference); Single volume, brief scholarly articles with references. Primarily British perspective.
Encyclopedia of social work: HV35 .S6 1995 and HV35 .S61 1997 Supp. (Reference); Detailed articles about social work, with bibliography for each article. Three volume set with later supplement, complete index in each volume.
The social work and human services treatment planner: HV689 .S63 2000 (NetLibrary); Step by step instructions for developing individualized treatment plans for clients with a variety of circumstances, such as child abuse, neglect of a child, family conflict, foster care maladjustment, etc.
The social work dictionary: HV12 .B37 2003 (Reference); In addition to brief terminology definitions, includes common acronyms and a chronology of key developments in the field.

Includes books, government documents, videos, journal titles, etc. available throughout the Library. Suggested searches include:

a keyword search for your subject, such as abused children
the general LC subject heading child abuse -- prevention.
Use the subject term social service for items about the activities of social work, but use social work administration or social work education for those specialized areas of the field.
Journals for social work can be found by doing a subject search for social service periodicals

Numerous electronic books and documents are also available via the catalog, such as the following:

Case planning for families involved with child welfare agencies - published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, includes state-by-state summary of case plan requirements
Child neglect: A guide for prevention, assessment and intervention - published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, extensive bibliography (pre-2006)
Child protective services: A guide for caseworkers - published by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services
Family reunification: What the evidence shows - literature review published by the Child Welfare Information Gateway, published in 2006
Neglected children and their families, 2nd edition - case examples are from Great Britain, but theoretical perspective is interesting.

Cornette Library shelves contain more than 1500 bound and current journals and magazines
Microform (film or fiche) available for dozens of leading newspapers, as well as other periodicals
Databases index articles found in journals and magazines.
- Citation only.
- Citation and a short summary of the article (abstract).
- Full-text.
- General, covering many kinds of topics, and specialized, for specific disciplines.
For this assignment be sure to use scholarly sources, not general interest magazines. The differences are important, for citation and for evaluating reliability.

On-campus: In the library or HELC
Off-campus: Login with your Buff Advisor username (for example, js123456) and your Buff Advisor password (for example, buffaloes).
Use Interlibrary Loan to request articles inaccessible through Cornette library. Allow up to 3 weeks for articles to arrive.

Academic Search Complete: General cross-disciplinary database, mostly full-text. is activated.
Multi-database search: Simultaneously searches Academic Search Complete, CINAHL which is nursing oriented, PsycINFO which has psychological assessments and research, and Social Work Abstracts, which searches ONLY social work professional publications.
Social Work Subject Guide: Suggests other databases that have social work content. Also check the subject guides for sociology and psychology.

Displays in most of our databases. Links from a citation to one or more of the following:
- one or more links to full-text of the cited article,
- a link to a pre-set search of the Cornette Library catalog for the cited item,
- a link to a pre-filled Interlibrary Loan request form for the article, or
- a link to various help options, including the Ulrich's information on refereed (peer-reviewed) journals.
For more information see the tutorial Using SFX to Link to Articles

Child Welfare Information Gateway: Provided by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has summaries of relevant topics.
National Association of Social Workers: Professional Association for your profession. Provides information about the profession, conferences, continuing education, pay issues, and legal issues.

To give credit to the author of the information you use.
To avoid plagiarism (WTAMU Code of Student Life: Appendix I-Academic Integrity Code)
a serious offense that can result in a failing grade or expulsion!
So that others can verify the information.
To assist others in doing their own research.

Dr. Loya requires you to use APA citation style
One copy of the newest edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association is located at the Reference Desk, and a second copy is on reserve at the Circulation desk and may be checked out for two hours.
Additional assistance is available from our Citation Basics web page.
Purdue University's Online Writing Lab has an excellent guide on all features of APA Style
Edit carefully any citations exported from the EBSCO database: capitalization and source location are the most frequent errors.

Thank you.

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