Research Guides: POLS 216: The Supreme Court (HC): Locating Journal Articles

Good Starting Points in Political Science and Law

Journal articles provide focused, reliable, and often up-to-date, information and analysis on public issues. Many of these journals use the peer review process, so that submitted work is vetted by scholars in the field and is improved by the author before it is published. The following indexes are the most relevant for finding scholarly journal articles in the field of political science.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
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Provides citations and abstracts of journals in political science and related fields including international relations, law, and public administration/policy. Covers 1975-present.
HeinOnline
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Provides searchable database of full text legal periodicals and primary documents. Subscribed libraries include: Law Journal Library, U.S. Congressional Documents, U.S. Federal Legislative History Library, U.S. Presidential Library, U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Supreme Court Library, and many others. Coverage for each periodical is from the beginning issue to the most current allowed under contract. Navigate to Help --> Knowledge Base to find helpful how-to articles and short training videos.
America: History and Life
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Use this database to find scholarly journal articles (and book reviews) on United States and Canadian history. (For articles on non-US history topics, search Historical Abstracts database instead.)
ProQuest Research Library
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Provides citations and full-text magazine and journal articles in a wide variety of disciplines, both scholarly and popular in scope. Covers 1971-present.
Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS) Index
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Provides abstracts of journal articles, books, government documents, statistical compilations, committee reports, intergovernmental, and private organizations reports. Areas covered include political, economic, social and public policy issues. Covers 1915-present.

Locating Journal Articles in Subject Specific Databases

Topics can frequently deal with issues beyond the scope of political science. In those cases, use a subject-specific index like the ones below to find pertinent articles with research and analysis in areas including economics, education, law, and sociology.

Alternative Press Index and Alternative Press Archive
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Research tool for identifying articles in 300+ radical and left journals, magazines, and newspapers. Includes US and global publications, in English and other languages.
ATLA Religion Database + ATLA Serials (American Theological Library Association)
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Provides online access to the entire core collection of more than fifty significant scholarly journals in the field of religion. Also provides citation information for journal articles, book reviews and essays for over 600 journals in the fields of religion and theology. Covers 1949-present.
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
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Provides citations to journals in the fields of architecture, city planning, interior design, historic preservation and archaeology. Covers 1930-present.
EconLit
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Provides abstracts to economic journals, books, book reviews, dissertations, and working papers. Topics include economic theory and history, monetary theory, labor economics, international, regional and urban economics. Coverage 1969-present.
GreenFILE
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An interdisciplinary database covering all aspects of human impact on the environment. Excellent resource for finding information on global climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more.
ProQuest Education Database
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A large database of education research, including journal articles, books, reports, and other sources. Similar to ERIC.
PubMed
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Free database of biomedical and related life and behavioral sciences journal articles. Includes MEDLINE index and links to PubMed Central open access articles when available.

Sociological Abstracts
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Provides abstracts of journal articles, book chapters, dissertations and other publications in the fields of sociology, and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences.

Women's Studies International
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Provides citations and abstracts of journal articles, books, book chapters, newspapers, dissertations and bulletins, in the core areas of women's studies. Subjects include, feminism, women of color, science, health and technology. Includes different women's studies resources. Covers 1972-present.

Tracking Citations Forward in Time

Usually researchers find more sources by looking at the footnotes in an article or book, but these will always be older than the publication you have in hand. Citation indexes like the Web of Science (which includes sections for the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, and Science) are set up to search for sources cited in the footnotes of journal articles as soon as they become available.

This allows you to find newer articles which cite the books and articles you already know are key for your topic. By relying on connections between authors rather than subject words and by moving forward in time, citation searching can open up new avenues of research.

See this tutorial for more information on cited reference searching.

Web of Science
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When you connect, choose the Cited References option to begin.
Enter the author's name: Last name first, First name initial only with asterisk (e.g., Smith J*)
Skip Cited Work box
Put the publication year in the Cited Year(s) box
On the next screen, sort the results by Cited Work, choose the relevant results and hit "See Results."
The results screen shows the newest articles first. Most records include a summary of contents, so that you can determine how relevant they may be for your research.
Use the search box and filters on the left to refine your results. See the variety of ways in which you can sort results and add a further keyword. Note also the References link on the far right. It gives you an immediate view of the bibliographies from the Cited References you have just found.

Google Scholar
To search for cited references in Google Scholar, enter the title of the article or book in quotation marks.
In the results list, check the link Cited by [number] for material citing the title you have entered.
Bonus Google Scholar includes books in its results. Web of Science results are limited to journal articles only.