Political Science Research Guide

Choose a topic that is interesting to you and which will work within your assignment's parameters. Usually your research goal is to locate published scholarship (books and journal articles) to read on your topic.

Often, instructors will also ask you to find and use government reports and other primary sources. Remember to evaluate the accuracy of your resources, and think critically about their arguments. When in doubt, check with your Political Science instructor.

Books
Articles, Scholarly
Articles, Non-Scholarly
Newspapers
Journals (Browse E-Journals)
Data & Statistics
Style Manuals
Associations
Research Institutes
Web Gateways (including Government Sites)

Prof. Rolf Swensen

Rolf Swensen Bibliographer for Political Science

Political Science Research Guide

Books

First, read a good summary of a history topic in a political science encyclopedia or dictionary, like those listed below. Second, once you know the basics on your topic, search for more published scholarship, such as books in CUNY+ or other catalogs.

Encyclopedias, Dictionaries & Guides

Birth of the Bill of Rights (Ref. E302.5 .W35 2004)
Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy (2002)
Encyclopedia of Globalization (Ref. JZ1318 .E63 2007)
Encyclopedia of Law and Society American and Global Perspectives (2007)
Immigration in U.S. History (Ref. JV6450 .I5565 2006)
New Encyclopedia of Africa (2008)
Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations (2007)

Find Books

CUNY+ Catalog: Search for books at the Queens College libraries, as well as other CUNY libraries.
New York Public Library: Search CATNYP, the catalog of the research libraries at NYPL. Books at the research libraries are non-circulating and must be consulted on site. NYPL has one of the premier research collections in the country and is open to all New York State residents.
Other Library Catalogs: Search the library catalogs of regional libraries such as the Queens Library, Brooklyn Public Library, New York University, Columbia University, etc.
WorldCat: Search for books in the national catalog for the United States and Canada. Includes holdings from libraries in other parts of the world, primarily European or English-speaking.

Articles, Scholarly

A journal article is written by a scholar or an expert, and provides a detailed analysis of a topic. It is written in the specialized language of a scholarly discipline (such as Political Science). It documents the resources the writer used by providing bibliographic citations such as footnotes, endnotes, and bibliography so a reader can check or repeat the research the scholar has completed.

Academic Search Complete: Comprehensive source for scholarly journals in all academic disciplines. More than 8,000 publications are indexed, and full text is provided for 4500, 1990 to date. Most are peer-reviewed. Searchable cited reference sources are provided for selected titles.
America: History and Life: American Studies, Africana Studies, History, 1964 to date.
Annual Reviews: Provides definitive critical reviews of the scientific and social scientific research literature of 34 disciplines, 1932 to date.
Black Thought and Culture: Africana Studies, American Studies, History, 1600 to date.
Cambridge University Journals: Multidisciplinary, 1990 to date.
Catalog of U.S. Government Publications: Citations, with web links, to publications from the legislative, executive and judicial branches of the U.S. Federal Government. Contains a “Locate in a Library” feature for document citations which lack full-text links, 1976 to date.
CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online): Working papers, more than 50 journals, books, policy briefs, and case studies, 1990 to date.
Gale Virtual Reference Library: Cross-searchable database of over 300 recent reference titles. Contains many multivolume encyclopedias in a variety of subject areas from business to education to medicine. NOTE: Alternative access is available at Gale Databases, 1993 to date.
HAPI (Hispanic American Periodicals Index): Authoritative, worldwide source for information about Central and South America, Mexico, Brazil, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics/Latinos in the United States, 1970 to date.
Index Master: Legal database offering keyword searching of “tables of contents” and indexes for over 8000 published secondary law titles. A second search in the CUNY+ Catalog is necessary to learn if one of the law titles is available for use in a CUNY library, current edition only.
Index to Current Urban Documents (ICUD): Citations to public policy reports by local government agencies, from 500 U.S. and Canadian cities. Full-text of documents for the New England Region only, 1990 to date.
LexisNexis Academic: Business, History, Law, Newspapers, Political Science.
Military & Government Collection: History, Law, Political Science.
Opposing Viewpoints: Basic information from reference books, magazine and news articles on many social issues, such as abortion, capital punishment, and welfare reform.
Oxford Reference Online Premium: Subject-based encyclopedias and dictionaries in many areas. Includes timelines, thesauri, and English, bilingual, and foreign language dictionaries.
Project MUSE: Journals in History, Drama, English, Language & Literature, Philosophy.
Research Library: Abstracts to articles from magazines, newspapers, scholarly journals, and trade periodicals with citations of book reviews. For a broad range of topics in all subject areas.
Roper Center Public Opinion Archives: Studies/polls on the economy, elections, political parties, international affairs, polls and polling, social issues, U.S. defense, and foreign policy.
Sage Political Science: More than two dozen full-text Political Science journals, 1890 to date.
Social Explorer: United States demographic data, maps, and reports taken from the Federal Census, from 1940 to 2000.
Social Sciences Citation Index: Citations from thousands of scholarly journals in the social sciences. Tracks cited references to determine what journal articles cite or reference other journal articles, 1971 to date.
Social Sciences Full Text: English-language journals in the major social sciences. For topics such as criminology, family, public administration, social work. Abstracts to journal articles and citations to book reviews.

Articles, Non-Scholarly

CQ Public Affairs Collection: History, Law, Political Science, American Studies, 1900 to date.
CQ Researcher: History, Law, Political Science, American Studies, 1991 to date.
CQ Supreme Court Collection: History, Law, Political Science, American Studies, 1700 to date.
CQ Weekly: History, Law, Political Science, American Studies, 1983 to date.
Discovering Multicultural America: A multimedia reference source providing essays, documents, and images on the culture, history, and society of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Native-Americans, 1995 to date.
Readers Guide Full Text: General interest database. Citations to articles from popular periodicals, such as magazines. Covers current events, news, health, education, the arts, etc., 1980 to date.
Readers Guide Retrospective: Citations to articles from 375 popular, general interest magazines, published in the United States from 1890 to 1982, reflecting the history of 20^th century America.

Newspapers

Newspaper articles can be used to explore a potential topic, or may be a necessary part of the source material a Political Science researcher needs to read because of the nature of the topic, for example, a question dealing with a local region, such as New York City.

Ethnic Newswatch

English and Spanish newspapers and magazines of the ethnic minority and native press, 1990 to date. Provides unique viewpoints from the Arab-American, Asian-American, Jewish-American, Latino-American, Native-American, and other communities.

LEXIS-NEXIS Academic

The best way to access New York City newspapers is through its Sources section. Instructions:

for Country select United States
for Topics, select General News Sources
for Region, select New York State
for Trail Publication Type, select News, then Newspapers

A list of New York State newspapers is displayed from which you can select New York Post, New York Sun, Newsday, etc.

New York Times

Full-text of the newspaper since 1980, images NOT available. Updated daily.

New York Times Historical

Full-page and full-article images, with searchable full-text from its first issue. Provides access to every page of the newspaper for the years 1851–2004.

Journals

Government Periodicals: From the University of Louisville
JSTOR: Dozens of core journals in political science. Cover-to-cover full-text from a journal's first issue until about five years ago.
Social Science E-Journals: Large selection of history and related journals from the Library's master list of E-Journals.

Data & Statistics

Government Statistics: From the Library's Government Documents page.
Infoshare: Statistics for local areas of New York City and New York State. Demographic data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 census. Health, immigration, socio-economic data since the 1990s.
Social Explorer: United States demographic data, maps, and reports taken from the Federal Census, from 1940 to 2000.

Style Manuals

Be sure to use the style manual your professor requires to help organize your bibliographic notes and citations. Most Political Science journals use American Political Science Association (APSA) style.

Style Manual for Political Science (Baruch, Ref. JA86 .A52 2001)

Consult the Citation Style Manuals.

Associations

Reports, studies, and data are sometimes available from the major scholarly organizations for the study of political science.

Research Institutes

Reports or studies written by research institutes or non-profit think-tanks can also be useful.

Web Gateways

Continue your search for reports, studies, data, statistics, and information by browsing these Political Science and Social Science web gateways.