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Spring 2011 — Prof. Thornberry
Questions? Need help? Contact Hannah Rozear 704-894-2152
Finding Background Information
- CQ Electronic Library: Provides background information, current and historical coverage, and statistical data related to U.S. government, legislative history, politics, public policy, and current affairs. Includes:
- Congressional Research Reports (via LexisNexis Congressional): reports created by the Congressional Research Service to provide members, committees, and congressional staff with nonpartisan and objective research and analysis on all public policy issues.
Finding Legislative and Government Information
Federal
- LexisNexis Congressional: indexes congressional documents, hearings, committee reports, House & Senate documents, bill texts and tracking, public laws, U.S. Code, biographical information & voting records.
- THOMAS: indexes bills, resolutions, public laws, House & Senate roll call votes, committee reports, and much more. Overseen by the Library of Congress.
- GPO Access: The Government Printing Office (GPO) website History of Bills lists legislative actions on bills that are reported in the Congressional Record.
State
Note: State legislation can be more difficult to track down than Federal/National government information. State and county websites can be useful places to start, as well as some of the links below.
Finding Articles
Use databases listed below to find scholarly journal and news articles on your policy issue. Depending on your policy, you may want to choose a discipline-specific database that matches your subject area (ex. education --> ERIC)
Starting Points
- Academic Search Premier: indexes scholarly and popular articles from thousands of journals, magazines, and newspapers covering a wide range of disciplines.
- Omnifile Full Text Mega : indexes articles from over 3,000 scholarly and popular periodicals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
- JSTOR & Project Muse: search these databases for full-text articles from scholarly journals.
Discipline-specific indexes and databases
- PAIS International: (1915 to present) Contains citations, with brief abstracts, to articles in over 800 English-language journals in public affairs.
- Worldwide Political Science Abstracts: Includes citations to articles appearing in over 1,000 political science journals. Covers the fields of comparative politics, economic policy, international relations, and political economy, among others.
- EconLit: Provides bibliographic citations and selected abstracts to journal articles from 326 journals; also indexes doctoral dissertations, books, and conference proceedings.
- Business Source Premier: Provides the full text of articles from over 8,800 periodicals, including more than 1,100 peer-reviewed journals and 1,200 trade journals and business magazines
- Social Sciences Abstracts Full Text : indexes articles in the fields of economics, ethics, gender studies, geography, international relations, law, political science, psychology, sociology, and related subjects. Includes the full text of selected articles from 1995 to the present.
- ERIC: indexes articles in over 775 journals as well as reports, conference proceedings, and curriculum guides in education and related areas.
- Health Source: indexes articles in numerous medical disciplines, incl. public health and health policy.
Newspapers
- LexisNexis Academic: (c. 1980 to present) Provides the full text of articles from local, national, and international newspapers, magazines, and trade journals as well as newswires, business information, patents, legal documents, and transcripts of radio and television broadcasts. Try filtering your search for news articles by state and regional newspapers.
- North Carolina Newspapers: provides links to local online newspapers in North Carolina. Newspapers from other states. NOTE: Newspaper websites do not always provide the full text to all archived news articles. Check the library catalog under "Periodicals" section for NC newspapers in the library.
- Library's Guide To Finding Newspapers
Public Opinion
- iPoll (part of the Roper Center for Public Opinion):a database of 500,000 questions and answers from surveys conducted by over 150 commercial and media survey organizations, including the Gallup Organization, Harris Interactive, Pew Research Associates, and more. Includes surveys on topics of Health, Immigration, and Education.
Finding Books
Use the Library Catalog to search for books, film, newspapers, journals, and magazines available in the library. When searching for books and other materials in a catalog, try searching by keyword, author, or title.
You may also try a search by Library of Congress subject headings. Just choose "Subject" in the dropdown menu. Helpful subject headings include:
- United States--Emigration and immigration--Government policy.
- High school dropouts--United States.
- Primary care Medicine.
- Physicians--Supply and demand--United States.
Search Worldcat to find books and materials not available in the Davidson College Library. You can place Interlibrary Loan requests for materials that the library does not own. Try a search in ebrary, collection of over 47,000 e-books published by over 220 academic, trade, and professional publishers; covers all subject areas.
- APSA (American Political Science Association) Citation Guide located at the Reference Desk, 1st Floor, Call No. JA86 .A52 2006. Note: APSA style based on the Chicago Manual of Style (author-date system).
Useful Links
- Think Tanks Search Engine: Search the sites of selected think tanks and research institutes for their publications and analysis. Think Tanks search engine created by Catherine Shreve, Duke University Libraries.
Research Help Guides:
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