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)
- Analyzing public policy
- Public policy an introduction
- Policy Analysis as Problem Solving : A Flexible and Evidence-Based Framework
- The public policy primer : managing the policy process
- Encyclopedia of International Relations and Global Politics (online)
News
Tips for searching newspaper databases.
- Think Tank Search - search limited to think tanks dealing in public policy, including NGOs (non-governmental organizations)
- Google.ca (advance)
- Searching Strategies:
- site: - limits your search to a specific site
- site:carleton.ca
- filetype: - limits your search to a specific file type
- filetype:pdf
- filetype:ppt
- filetype:xls
- site: - limits your search to a specific site
Other search engines
- Bing
- DuckDuckGo
- Internet Archives (researching old websites, but it’s so much more)
- Search Encrypt (uses local encryption to ensure your searches remain private)
- CCSearch (copyright-free content)
- Gibiru
- Searching Strategies:
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:
