Research Guides: POLS 293: Public Policymaking and Analysis (HC): Journal Articles

Using Journal Articles

Journal articles provide in-depth scholarly information for your research. They are vetted and improved by peer review prior to publication. They form an important part of the communication network that makes research available, prompts discussion, and identifies new issues to resolve.

Before searching in journal databases, develop vocabulary that uses synonyms and related terms. Construct search statements that bring subjects into meaningful connections.

OR: Link synonyms with OR and group them with parentheses
(immigra* OR ethnic*)

AND: Combine topics that you want to see together
"human rights" AND gender*

Focus: Choose where the database is searching. It may be set automatically for keyword. You can make the search more precise by looking instead for subjects or words in abstracts.

Results: Look at the articles retrieved, especially their subject headings, for additional ideas and concepts. Then change your search terms for further results.

Journal Indexes

The databases below allow you to search for journal articles by subject. When you find a title of interest, if the full text is not immediately available (as in JSTOR and Proquest), use the Find It button to check for your college's holdings.

Political Science Indexes

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.
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.

General Indexes -All Subject Areas Covered

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.
JSTOR
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Provides full-text and page images from many of the top journals in most academic disciplines. Coverage is from the inception of the journal through three to five years ago.

Indexes for Related Subject Areas

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.
ProQuest Education Database
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A large database of education research, including journal articles, books, reports, and other sources. Similar to ERIC.
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.
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.

Sociological Abstracts
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Find journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations and conference papers in the fields of sociology, social work and related disciplines.

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.

Journal Indexes for Regions of the World

Africa-Wide
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Offers access to multi-disciplinary information on Africa including books, journal articles, maps and music recordings. Some materials are in full-text. Covers 19th century-present.
Bibliography of Asian Studies
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Provides citations to journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, anthologies, and Festshriften on all subjects pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia. Covers 1971-present. Complete citations end with the 1991 records. Since 1992, newly published books are no longer being added.

DialNet
This is a virtual library of Ibero-American scholarship, hosted by the University de la Rioja in Spain. It indexes more than 10,000 journals and 6+ million documents. There are a growing number of full text articles available as content is continuously updated. All subjects covered including the social sciences. Most titles are in Spanish with a smaller number in Portuguese and Catalan. Small number of titles in English.
HLAS Online: Handbook of Latin American studies
Covers books, book chapters, articles, and conference papers published in the field of Latin American studies and edited by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress. Good for material written in Spanish.

HAPI: Hispanic American Periodicals Index
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Contains citations to scholarly journal articles published in Latin America, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, and to materials that address this region and U.S. Hispanic topics. Covers political, economic, and social issues. Some citations link to full-text articles. Covers 1970-present.
Publicaciones y Revistas Sociales y Humanísticas (PRISMA)
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Covers all aspects of Hispanic studies, from research on indigenous cultures past and present to current economic indicators, politics, society, and Hispanic theater. Disciplines covered include anthropology, economics, history, literature, political science and sociology. Includes works in English and Spanish.

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.

Web of Science
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When you connect, choose the Cited References option to begin.
Enter the author's name: e.g., ivison d* Last name first, First name initial only with asterisk.
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 identify articles of interest.
Use the search box and filters on the left to refine your results.
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 is limited to journal articles only.