General Use

As a general rule, books are especially good for background and in-depth analysis.  They are also often easier to find than articles (finding a relevant book in a library catalog is often easier than finding a relevant article in many article databases).  And once you have the book in your hands, you can use the table of contents and the index to take you directly to the part(s) of the book which will be most useful.  Even in the sciences, where advances take place so rapidly that currency is often a very serious concern, books can provide the basic knowledge and background necessary to allow you to focus your research.  You can find specific information on how to search MARQCAT by clicking on that link on the Signpost home page.

Example 1

Your topic: Is there any way to live in a city without long commutes?

Words search in MARQCAT: traffic congestion

Results: The Livable City: Revitalizing Urban Communities by Partners for Livable Communities (2000)

Example 2

Your topic: What is beneficial about salary caps for athletes?

Words search in MARQCAT: sports and salaries

Results: Sports Economics: Current Research edited by John Fizel, Elizabeth Gustafson, and Lawrence Hadley (1999)

Example 3

Your topic: Why not legalize marijuana?

Words search in MARQCAT: drugs and legalization

Results: The Drug Legalization Debate edited by James A. Inciardi (1999)

Example 4

Your topic: How ethical is it for scientists to use stem cells?

Words search in MARQCAT: stem cell research

Results:  The Human Embryonic Stem Cell Debate: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy edited by Suzanne Holland, Karen Lebacqz, and Laurie Zoloth (2001)

Additional Information on Publishing Patterns

In some fields, the information in books can be just as current and relevant as in any journal article. In the humanities and in some of the social sciences, e.g. in history, literature, economics, psychology, and philosophy, books provide far more than mere background; they are an integral part of the publishing of new research and knowledge. The patterns of publishing format are simply different in various scholarly fields.

These patterns vary for a variety of reasons: research in some fields remains current and valuable longer in some fields than in others; the pace at which new research is produced; the nature of research material in some fields involves far larger quantities of material that simply cannot easily fit into the more limited scope of a journal article; and the culture of the discipline. Scholars and researchers in the sciences typically bypass books as a means of publishing new research, whereas scholars in the humanities and some social sciences can use both articles and books.

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