World Cultures
A  R e s e a r c h  G u i d e

This guide will help you start your research on a topic dealing with world cultures for your research paper or presentation.

I Reference Books I Searching the Library Catalog I Searching Electronic Resources I
I Searching the Internet I Recommended Web Sites I Web Evaluation I
I Citing Your Sources I

Reference Books
Reference books are a good place to start your research. The following list of books will help you narrow down your topic, find additional search terms, and get a general overview of your topic before you begin your research. This is not an exhaustive list, so be sure to look at the books shelved near these titles for additional books.

• Dictionary of Global Culture – REF CB 9 .D53 1997
• Encyclopedia of Modern Ethnic Conflicts – REF D 860 .E56
• Atlas of World Cultures: A Geographical Guide to Ethnographic Literature – REF G 1046 .E1 P7
• Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life – REF GN 333 .W67
• Encyclopedia of World Cultures – REF GN 550 .E53
• CultureGrams (World Edition) - REF GT 150 .C85
• Do’s and Taboos Around the World – REF HF 5387 .D66

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Searching the Library Catalog
Once you have narrowed down your topic, search the library catalog for additional resources on your specific topic. Here are some search tips and strategies:

Here are some subject headings you may use for a simple subject search (you will then want to scroll down the index for additional related headings)

Culture
Personality and culture
Intercultural communication

To conduct a simple keyword search, try some of the following search terms (remember to put phrases in quotation marks & note that doing a keyword search will produce broader results than the subject search):

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Books that Circulate

• Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know - LC 149 .H57
• Reading with a Difference: Gender, Race, and Cultural Identity – PR 408 .S49 R43
• Culture Wars: Opposing Viewpoints – H 31 .O66 C85
• Cultural Intelligence: A Guide to Working with People from Other Countries – HM 1211 .P47

Searching Electronic Resources for Articles and eBooks
You will find magazine, journal, and newspaper articles; essays; and full-text ebooks on world cultures in most of the databases at OCC Library. This is a list of the most pertinent sources. Go to the library’s Web page and click on the link “Electronic Resources” to get the full list of databases at OCC Library.

	Off-Campus Access: Log in to MyOCC or Blackboard to access these resources off-campus. If you are having problems logging in, please go the MyOCC Username & Password page or call MyOCC Technical Support at (714) 432-5072.

Britannica Online - Online dictionary and encyclopedia and more. Good for providing a general overview of your topic.

Expanded Academic ASAP - Database of magazine and journal articles, most of which are available in full-text. You may also limit your search to scholarly publications.

Literature Resource Center - Database of literary biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses in full-text.

eBooks - NetLibrary provides electronic full-text copies of over 3,000 published print materials.

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Periodicals in Print at OCC Library
The following periodicals are found in the Periodicals section of the library and are filed in alphabetical order by title.

Audubon
International Wildlife
National Geographic
National Wildlife
Natural History
Scientific American

Searching the Internet for Web Sites
The following Web sites will help you find reliable Internet resources that are of good authority for your research paper or presentation.

Librarians’ Index to the Internet - This site was developed by librarians as a reliable and efficient guide to Internet resources. The Index is a searchable, annotated subject directory of more than 14,000 Internet resources that have been selected and evaluated by librarians.

DMOZ Open Directory Project – This human-edited directory of the Web breaks the topics into sub-topics and also provides “see also” references.

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Recommended Web Sites

Sociosite > Subject Areas > Culture – Social Science Information System based at the University of Amsterdam. This page provides links to sites related to various aspects of culture including Culture and Cultural Studies, Customs & Folklore, and CyberCulture.

PMC – Postmodern Culture  - This electronic journal takes an interdisciplinary look at contemporary cultures. Site includes free access to abstracts, reviews, and full-text essays from the current issue only.

Culture, Communication, Intercultural Communication  - Access articles written by marketing lecturer Stephan Dahl on topics from Cross-Cultural Advertising to Intercultual Communication.

Web Evaluation

Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages  - A quick and useful guide to help you evaluate the Web pages you find for accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage. From Jim Kapoun’s article "Teaching undergrads WEB evaluation: A guide for library instruction” originally published in the July/August 1998 issue of C&RL News on pages 522-523.

Citing Your Sources

Citation Styles – A guide to citing Internet sources using the MLA, APA, and other formats. From Bedford/St. Martin’s site Online! A Reference Guide to Using Internet Sources .

Guides to Cite It! – Provides style guides for APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, and others. From the University of Georgia Libraries.

(jk 5/07)