Content last reviewed:
Pick a research topic:
- Read your syllabus (assignment instructions).
- Pick a topic that interests you and meets the assignment instructions.
- Narrow or broaden the scope of your topic so that it is "doable."
What's scope? Scope refers to the "people, places and things" or "who, what, when and where" that you are studying.
Identify key concepts:
Define and get an overview of your topic or find definitions of key terms and concepts:
- Oxford Reference - Use dictionaries to help with terminology. Encyclopedias provide background information, an overview of topics and issues and often lead you to further readings
- Encyclopedia of Government and Politics (online)
- The Emerald handbook of feminism, criminology and social change
- Handbook of International Feminisms: Perspectives on Psychology, Women, Culture, and Rights
- The Routledge companion to feminism and postfeminism
- Feminism and politics
- Encyclopedia of International Relations and Global Politics (online)
News
Tips for searching newspaper databases.
Think Tanks - can give an appreciation of government action or inaction in an area, they are research institutes which perform research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture.
Develop a search statement to search databases (including news databases), and other academic sources
A search statement includes a list of keywords, combined using Boolean Operators (AND; OR; NOT)
AND - this will combine concepts, all of which must be found in your list of results
senate AND reform
OR - either this concept or that concept (or both). This is helpful for generating a list of synonyms. Use synonyms to anticipate the different ways different authors may refer to the same idea. A thesaurus can be helpful for this
internet OR web OR online
NOT - do not include this concept
advertising NOT magazine
Mexico NOT city
Quotation marks - find a specific phrase
"human rights"
Truncation - any other combination of letters to follow
Canad* - will find Canada, Canadian, Canadian's, etc.
journalis* - will find journalism, journalist, journalistic, etc.
Combine one or more of these operators
Put a list of synonyms in brackets
For example:
(smartphone OR "mobile phone" OR "cell phone") AND (societ* OR cultur*)
Why use journal articles?
- They are more up-to-date than most books.
- They are “peer reviewed” by other scholars in the field who check for academic integrity.
- Every article will contain cited references that appear as footnotes and/or bibliographies.
OMNI Search engine located on the library home page, allows you to search across many of the library's collections simultaneously. Including books, ebooks, journal articles, and more.
See our list of recommended databases on the Political Science subject guide, which includes:
