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Loyola University Chicago Libraries

Political Science

Databases and useful links for research in Political Science.

PLSC 101-1608: American Politics

This course focuses on primary and secondary source-based research.

Assignment 3 details: Using scholarly sources and the citation method of your choice, describe the impact, if any, your primary source had on American Government in 400-500 words. Was the author able to effect policy? Why or why not? Did their ideas influence future concepts of what American Government should be? Why or why not?

Understanding Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary Sources

Primary sources are original materials that provide firsthand accounts or direct evidence on a particular topic. In political science, these often include:

  • Newspaper or magazine articles
  • Books, pamphlets, government documents
  • Diaries, letters, manuscripts, speeches, interviews, relics, artifacts
  • Maps, archival materials, creative works
  • Art, visual materials, music, sound recordings, videos

Secondary Sources

Secondary sources interpret, analyze, or critique primary sources. These include:

  • Scholarly journal articles
  • Books and book chapters
  • Policy analyses
  • Literature reviews
  • Documentary films or news analysis

 

Searching the Library Catalog

The library catalog is a great place to start your research. Here are some tips to make searching more effective:

  1. Make sure that you sign in. This allows you to see your access options for library materials, save searches, set notifications on saved searches, and save items to your favorites.
  2. Use Boolean operators if you're doing a keyword search. For example:
    • Civil Rights AND Voting AND Discrimination - the catalog will return only materials that mention all three search terms.
    • Globalization AND (Trade OR Economy) - the catalog will broaden your search to include materials that discuss either the Trade or the Economy alongside other instances of the term 'Globalization.'
    • "gun control" AND Legislation NOT "second amendment" - the catalog will reduce your search results by returning materials that mention Socialism and Russia but do not mention Lenin.
    • Make sure that you enter Boolean operators in all caps: AND, OR, NOT
  3. Use truncation and/or wildcards. For example:
    • Entering the search term democra* will return results for democratization, democratic, democratize, democracy, etc.
    • Entering the search term wom?n will return results for woman, women
  4. Group your terms using parenthesis to do multiple searches at once. For example:
    • ("civil rights" OR "voting rights") AND "20th century"
  5. Narrow your results to a specific genre, place, or time. For example:
    • "US Supreme Court" AND "21st century"
    • "civil rights" AND "United States"
    • "Presidential veto" AND "domestic policy" AND "20th century"

Databases