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Course Research Pages

POL 150 - Introduction to Political Science

Finding Background Information and Defining Terms

These reference databases each contain hundreds of reference works on topics including American history, law, philosophy, and political science.

Credo Reference

Encyclopedia Britannica Academic Edition

Gale Virtual Reference Library

Finding Information in Books

Bowman Library Catalog - We have many books that can help you in your research. Here are just a few. Use the hyperlinked subject headings for each book to find additional relevant books.

• State's rights and American federalism : a documentary history
• The rise of the states: evolution of American state government
• The House and Senate explained: the people's guide to Congress
• Mobilizing inclusion: transforming the electorate through get-out-the-vote campaigns
• Communicator-in-Chief: how Barack Obama used new media technology to win the White House

Find more books on these subjects:

• Executive Power -- United States
• Liberalism -- United States
• Constitutional History -- United States
• Political Culture -- United States -- Regional Disparities
• Federal Government -- United States
• Government and the Press -- United States

Library-Subscription Databases

Use your library barcode to access these from off-campus.

CQ Researcher - A collection of detailed, full-text research reports on current and controversial topics in the U.S. including elections. Includes reports titled States and Federalism, Supreme Court, and Presidential Power.

LexisNexis - Contains the full text of current and past news articles from international and national newspapers and magazines, newswires, and trade publications.

EBSCO Academic Search Premier - Contains current and past full-text articles from both the popular press (newspapers and magazines) and scholarly journals.

JSTOR - A collection of scholarly journal articles and abstracts on topics including American history, law, and political science.

Public Databases

Infomine
A directory of scholarly resources on the Internet, including sites with information on foreign policy, American history, and political science. Use Advanced Search to select free resource access.

Search.USA.gov - The official search engine of the U.S. government that searches government websites.

Google Scholar - Looks just like Google, but searches scholarly literature only. Note that the full text is not available for all articles. If full text is not available, you may order it via Interlibrary Loan.

APA Citation

Basics of APA Style - An easy to use guide with sample papers. Use just the pages you need or watch the whole tutorial.

NoodleTools - Create correct APA-style citations easily and save them online using this awesome tool. (Menlo subscription: first-time login from any campus computer or see librarian for code.)

Page Last Updated: March 25 2013