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Debating the Issues in World Politics Research Guide

Ross Miller - POLI 025 online course

Search Strategy

  • Before you start your research, focus your topic.
    Try writing your topic in one sentence. For example:
    Should the United States rethink its foreign policy towards North and South Korea?

  • Then, boil the statement down to keywords, or the most important elements of your issue.
    For example: United States, foreign policy, North Korea, South Korea

  • Then, separate the keywords with the connector 'and'.
    Your search could now be something like this:
    United States and policy and Korea

Finding Books on your Topic

  • Go to the Library Homepage

  • Click on OSCAR (the Library's catalog).

  • Click on Keyword search.

  • Enter your keywords in the box.
    For example, United States and policy and Korea
    You would retrieve a number of U.S. Congressional hearings and books on the topic.

  • These books are available for checkout at Orradre Library. You must have a valid ACCESS card and you must be in the Library's patron file to check them out.

  • Or, if you are some distance from SCU, you can utilize the LINK+ Visiting Patron option at one of the LINK+ Visiting Patron participating libraries. More information on LINK+ is available online. You must have a valid ACCESS card and you must be in Orradre Library's patron file.

Finding Articles on your Topic

Important Note for Off-Campus Users: You must have a current ACCESS card and you must be in the library's patron file to gain access to SCU databases.

  • Go to Library Homepage.
  • Click on Electronic Databases by Subject, and then click on the subject Political Science.
  • The Library subscribes to a number of databases that will retrieve either citations to or the full-text of journal articles on your topic.
  • Click on the name of a database and then enter your search.
  • You will need to input your name and barcode number off the back of your ACCESS card to access any of these databases from off-campus.

Some good databases to search are:

If your article is not available fulltext in the database you searched:

  • Go to Library Homepage

  • Click on Electronic and Print Journals by Title and Subject list, then type the title of your journal (not the title of the article) in the box. You could retrieve:

    1. a list of other databases where your article is full-text
    2. or a statement that your journal is in Orradre's print holdings
    3. or a statement that the journal title is not available at Orradre.

  • If the journal is available full-text in another database, click on the name of the database.

  • If the journal is in Orradre print holdings, you will need to come to Orradre and photocopy the article.

  • If Orradre does not have the journal title either electronically or in print, you can fill out a Bronco Express request form online and the article can be sent to your GroupWise email account.

  • More information about Bronco Express is available. You need a valid ACCESS card to place a Bronco Express request.

Finding Websites

Getting too many hits in Google? Try using one of the following web catalogs:

Librarians Index to the Internet
http://www.lii.org

An index to the Web organized by librarians. There are far fewer websites, but each is reviewed and indexed by a librarian before inclusion in LII. All entries are well annotated, so you know where you are going.
SEARCH TIPS: AND default; can use OR, NOT, () also; use * to truncate; use " " around phrases; can select fields to search.

Infomine
http://infomine.ucr.edu/

Scholarly Internet Resource Collections is a product of UC Riverside. (To quote their homepage) "... is intended for the introduction and use of Internet/Web resources of relevance to faculty, students, and research staff at the university level. It is being offered as a comprehensive showcase, virtual library and reference tool containing highly useful Internet/Web resources including databases, electronic journals, electronic books, bulletin boards, listservs, online library card catalogs, articles and directories of researchers, among many other types of information. " You can browse by subject, but it has its own internal search engine. You can use the Boolean AND and put quotes around phrases. Truncation is automatic.
SEARCH TIPS: AND default; can use OR; automatic truncation (use " " to turn off); use " " around phrases; can select fields to search.

Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG)
http://www.sosig.ac.uk

" ... aims to provide a trusted source of selected, high quality Internet information for researchers and practitioners in the social sciences, business and law. It is part of the UK Resource Discovery Network." (From About Us) It consists of two databases, the Internet Catalogue of pages selected & described by subject experts and the Social Science Search Engine consisting of over 50,000 pages collected by a software program.

Finding a Photograph

To access the AP Photo Archive database from off-campus, first you must configure the proxy server settings in your browser according to these instructions.

Once your proxy server is set up:

Finding Country Information

An extensive Research Guide on How to Find Country Information is also available online.

Citation Guides

Citing an Internet Resource APA & MLA Style

Simplified guide to citing Internet resources done by Orradre Librarian, Gail Gradowski.

Citations Style Guides
http://dept.sccd.ctc.edu/cclib/Research_Tools/Citation_Style_Guides

From the Seattle Central Community College Library, this site shows you how to cite using examples from Modern Language Association (MLA), Chicago (Turabian), American Psychological Association (APA), and American Anthropological Association (AAA) styles.

Ask a Librarian

Still don't know where to start with your research, or need help with your search strategy? Try asking a librarian either via:

5/3/04