You may want to use the Occupational Outlook Handbook. It's a handy document to know about, it's authoritative, is kept up-to-date, and is free and easy to find on the internet. I cleared it with Dr. Postell for this assignment, but it isn't a study!
You can use the Five Step format from the Research Study tab on this guide, and I have some Database Search Example formats that you may want to try, below. Play with your search words! For example, maybe you have a major that is called different things at different colleges and universities, or maybe you can use the name of the profession instead of the major. Play with your words and the database tools.
This might be a good search for a Social Work major to use, in the Social Science Database or the Sociological Collection:
The yellow highlights are database tips or tweaks that might make a huge difference--play with your search to get the best results! Ask me if you need help understanding.
The 3rd row of words is optional--I added the last row to narrow the search to employment, which is one of the elements that Dr. Postell suggested. Change the words, as needed.
If you are an English major, you can try searching that, but, if you are planning to be an English teacher, that may be another option, or Language Arts teacher.
Also, keep in mind some of the topics and statistics that Dr. Postell suggested, you can add a third row and look up "history" or "employment."
For further details, ask the Librarian for help--she has a copy of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, and is happy to help.
Be sure to select Peer Reviewed or Scholarly Journals to limit your search!
We are in the process of writing our bibliography and I'm debating my sources. We have to use scholarly/secondary sources and was hoping you could point me in the right direction.
You are on a very good track--but there are some complications, and I have some suggestions.
I like to start with a publication called the Occupational Outlook Handbook--it's published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that you already found--you can Google the title. I believe it's one of the best documents the government ever published (especially for this assignment), and I cleared it with Dr. Postell. But it isn't a study!
I recommend you look for studies in databases using the list of databases on the left column. Articles from the Council on Social Work Education are not available for free on their website, but are available in the database Academic Search Complete (the link is in the second box down in the left column). This happens a lot—publishers want money for articles, so they aren’t free on the web.
I’ll put a suggested search for you in Database Search Example 2, in the center of the page, with some explanations.