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.
- SourceDorks Peer-to-Peer Research HelpUndergrads helping undergrads!
"Need help finding credible sources for your upcoming paper? Has your teacher banned Wikipedia? Meet with one of the SourceDorks! The SourceDorks will help you find sources relevant to your paper, narrow down a big topic, get peer-reviewed sources, and use sources your teacher will love!"
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 and middle eastern studies.
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.
- Peace Research Abstracts This link opens in a new windowPeace Research Abstracts provide bibliographic records covering topics related to peace analysis including conflict resolution, international affairs and peace psychology.
- Index Islamicus This link opens in a new windowSearch for books and articles in periodicals about Islam and the Muslim world. Also includes reviews.
- 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.