Welcome
Welcome to the Politics library dashboard. The dashboard provides quick links to the resources you need to succeed in your course. Whether you are online or on-Grounds, UVA Library services and support are available to all students.
Your Librarian
Your Librarian is Christine Slaughter
Each school/department at UVA is assigned a research librarian. 
Connect with Christine for help with your assignments. This service is available to all Politics students, and meeting with a librarian early in your research process can help you save time and get a better grade.
Christine can help with: learning how to use the Library online, brainstorming your research topic, developing your search strategy, capstone/thesis/dissertation planning, identifying relevant databases/journals for your literature reviews, tracking down resources, and citation management. Christine can meet with you in-person or online via Zoom.
Ask a Librarian
Sign Up for Library events
Sign up for Library orientations, workshops, and events with our online calendar. UVA Library programming is offered in-person and online.
Search for academic articles
Academic databases contain peer-reviewed articles, scientific papers, reports, and more. These are the most used databases for Politics research.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowGoogle Scholar is a free academic search engine that can be thought of as the academic version of Google. It searches repositories of publishers, universities, or scholarly websites. Sync with UVA Library to access PDFs.
- 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.
- Policy File Index This link opens in a new windowPolicy File Index is a unique resource for U.S. public policy research in that it grants users access to timely, updated information from over 350 public policy think tanks, nongovernmental organizations, research institutes, university centers, advocacy groups, and other entities. Over 75 public policy topics are covered, from foreign policy to domestic policy. The majority of Policy File Index records link directly to the full-text report, paper, document, or other source.
Help me with APSA/Chicago citations
For many courses in Politics our preferred citation style is APSA or Chicago, but always check with your professor to make sure you are following the guidelines for a given assignment.
- ZoteroZotero is free citation management software that helps you collect, cite, and share research, using any of dozens of different styles, including APSA and Chicago.
Search Virgo
Consult handbooks and review journals
- International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral SciencesThe International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences comprises over 3,900 articles that offer expert summaries of a wide variety of social science concepts.
- Annual Review of Political ScienceThe Annual Review of Political Science is a journal of reviews that summarize trends in political science research from the 1990s to the present.
Explore datasets/data repositories
- 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.)
- SAGE Research Methods Datasets This link opens in a new windowSAGE Research Methods Datasets is a collection of teaching datasets and instructional guides that give students a chance to learn data analysis by practicing themselves.
- 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.