Best Resources for this Course
Finding Journal Articles
Often your professor will ask you to use scholarly articles, academic articles, or peer-reviewed articles. These are generally all the same thing. They are written by scholars who are experts in their fields and are usually tied to a college or university. They are great for:
- Credible and trustworthy information
- Recent findings and research topics in the field
- Research studies, tables, and data
- Bibliographies and reference lists.
Search Tips:
- Search one country at a time for your selected issue.
- e.g. First gather information on poverty in the United States then gather information on poverty in France. It is your job to compare the two.
- Use more than one database
Find Journal Articles about your topic:
- Academic Search Premier (via EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Provides searching of over 8,500 journals, including peer-reviewed, across a wide range of topics. coverage: 1975 to present - Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Provides full-text reference books in 20 subject areas. It includes over 180 titles and 65,000 images "powered by a network of cross-references that cut across topics, titles and publishers to provide answers - and new connections - in context." coverage: Varies
- PsycARTICLES and PsycINFO (via EBSCOhost) This link opens in a new window
Contains "...over 50 top full-text psychology publications covering the disciplines of Human Physiology, Personality Psychology, Social Psychology, Educational Psychology, and more."
Statistics & Online Resources
Tip: Using google with a [site:.gov .edu ] will narrow results to government and educational websites.
- Statista This link opens in a new window
One of the world's largest statistics portals with data from over 18,000 sources. Provides access to 1 million statistics. Also contains information on industries, countries, digital markets, and other topics, as well as infographics.
- Pew Research CenterAn important independent organization that "provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world," through opinion polling and social science research.
- U.S. Census BureauThis resource provides a wealth of demographic information about people, geography, and businesses. Enter a state, city, county, or zip code into the Community Facts box at the top of the page and then take a look at some of the options in the left-hand column to find out about a community's population, age, education, income, and other data.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsThe Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labor is the principal federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy.
- CIA World FactbookThe World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities.
- UNdata - A World of InformationA set of 33 databases from the UN. These databases, tables and glossaries cover a wide range of themes, such as Agriculture, Education, Employment, Energy, Industry, Information & Communication Technology, National Accounts, Trade, etc.
- Bureau of Justice StatisticsThe BJS mission is to collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government.
Finding Books and Ebooks
Bowman Library has a large variety of books and ebooks that are chosen for their relevance to the courses offered. You can access ebooks directly from the library website whether your off or on campus. Books and ebooks are good for finding overviews and history of your topic. You don't need to read the whole book to get the information you need for your project; often one chapter of a scholarly book will cover the information you need.
Try using these search subjects:
Criminal Justice | Poverty | Homeless Persons | Family Leave
Google Search Tips
Search Tips:
- Use Google Scholar at scholar.google.com
- Use site specific searches:
New York Times [site:nytimes.com]
Government sites [site:.gov]
Educational sites [site:.edu]
- If you find scholarly articles on the web don't pay for them or give up. Type the article title into the Bowman Library search box. If we don't have it just request it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
