Librarian
Start Your Research with The Basics
- Virgo: UVa Libraries Catalog This link opens in a new windowVirgo lists books, journals, videos, audio, manuscripts, and Internet resources owned or licensed by the University Library (Main, Brown, Clemons, etc.), Health Sciences Library, Law Library, and Darden School Library.
- Politics Research GuideIf you get lost, you can also search the Politics Subject Guide for good places to start your research.
Take Advantage of Library Help & Tools
Librarians love to meet with students! Feel free to contact me directly for a one-on-one research consultation. My contact info is on this page.
- Ask a LibrarianWe are always available to help with your research. You can chat, email, phone, text, or come visit a library in person!
- ZoteroZotero is free software that helps you collect, cite, and share research. It is extremely helpful when you are writing your paper and need to construct a bibliography.
Focus on Peer Reviewed Articles
Databases are really great when you want to find something specific to your discipline, or you want to be sure that you are getting the best resources available! These are your best bets for political science.
Here are tips for using databases:
- Remember that if you are off-grounds when you want to access these databases, be sure to go through a library website so you are prompted for your NetBadge computing ID. You will then be able to view the articles without having to pay for them.
- Use the the "Find @ UVA" button to get the full text.
- Limit your search results to "peer-reviewed" articles to get articles evaluated by experts.
- Political Science Complete This link opens in a new windowPolitical Science Complete provides nearly 340 full-text reference books and monographs and more than 44,000 full-text conference papers, which includes those from the International Political Science Association. The database also provides a subject-specific thesaurus with more than 23,500 terms to provide subject searching guidance to researchers.Subject coverage includes comparative politics, humanitarian issues, international relations, law and legislation, non-governmental organizations and political theory.
- Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new windowCommunication & Mass Media Complete provides coverage of journals in communication, mass media, and other closely-related fields of study. It provides indexing and abstracts for more than 570 journals, and selected coverage of nearly 200 more, for a combined coverage of more than 770 titles. Furthermore, this database includes full text for over 450 journals.
- Social Sciences This link opens in a new windowSearch for journal articles in many social science areas including world and US politics, sociology, economics, education, government and social policy, law enforcement.
- SSRN: Social Science Research Network This link opens in a new windowSocial Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research and is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences. The SSRN eLibrary consists of two parts: an Abstract Database containing abstracts on over 542,600 scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers and an Electronic Paper Collection currently containing over 445,100 downloadable full text documents in Adobe Acrobat pdf format.
- Social Sciences Citation Index This link opens in a new windowPart of Web of Knowledge/Web of Science. Daily updates make it a good source for recent information. Gives number of times each article has been cited. Use Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to find impact factors for journals in science, social sciences, and technology.
Additional Resources
- SAGE Research Methods Online This link opens in a new windowSAGE Research Methods is a methods library with more than 1000 books, reference works, journal articles, and instructional videos by world-leading academics from across the social sciences, including the largest collection of qualitative methods books available online from any scholarly publisher.
- International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral SciencesFully revised and updated, the second edition of the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences offers a source of social and behavioral sciences reference material that is broader and deeper than any other. It comprises over 3,900 articles, commissioned by 71 Section Editors, and includes 90,000 bibliographic references as well as comprehensive name and subject indexes.
Get Social Science Data
- ICPSR This link opens in a new windowThe Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) provides a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction. Users may view documentation, download raw data, and search a bibliography of data-related literature. (You must create a personal ICPSR account with your virginia.edu email address in order to download data.)
- iPoll This link opens in a new windowiPOLL contains nearly a half-million questions from surveys conducted since 1935 by academic, commercial, and media survey organizations, including CNN, Gallup, AP, the Wall Street Journal, and many others. From the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
- Data-Planet This link opens in a new windowThe Data-Planet repository contains over 18.9 billion datapoints from over 400 databases sourced from 70 public and private organizations. The datasets contained in Data-Planet are structured and homogenized to permit correlation of multiple, diverse indicators. The Data-Planet technology and information architecture provides powerful tools to interpret and visualize that data. The repository continues to grow regularly with the addition of new datasets drawn from public and private sources.
- Social Explorer This link opens in a new windowInteractive Maps and Reports provide easy access to demographic information about the United States. Data comes from the Census beginning in 1790 and from the Religious Congregations and Membership Study beginning in 1980. Also has crime and health data.
- Statistical Abstract of the United States This link opens in a new windowThe Statistical Abstract of the United States is a one-volume, comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States. Use the Abstract as a convenient volume for statistical reference, and as a guide to sources of more information both in print and on the Web.
- Historical Statistics of the United States This link opens in a new windowQuantitative historical data covering American population, work and welfare, economic structure, governance, and international relations from colonial times to the present.