POLI SCI 999: UCDC Social Sciences Seminar

Choose a topic.  It's OK if it's vague, or too broad; you can get more specific later.

Do a brain dump: Note down what you already know about your topic, including:

• Names of people, organizations, companies, time period you are interested in, places of interest (countries, regions, cities, etc.)

Fill in the gaps in your knowlege: get background information from encyclopedias (online or in print) or other secondary sources.  Wikipedia can be good here.

Select the best search tools to find information on your topic.  Look under the Finding Articles tab of this guide for article database suggestions, or click here to see all the article databases available for your subject.  Or use a catalog like Oskicat or Melvyl to search for books and other resources.

Use nouns from your brain dump as search terms.

Evaluate what you find.  Change search terms to get closer to what you really want.

Refine your topic - Using the information you have gathered, determine if your research topic should be narrower or broader. You may need to search basic resources again using your new, focused topics and keywords. 

For more ideas, take a look this short tutorial on beginning your research!

So, how do you know what disciplines you should use?

1. Look at the department your class is offered by.  That's a pretty obvious clue.
2. Think about what other disciplines might discuss your topic.  For instance, a paper on Education in Chile could involve both Education and Latin American Studies. 

What do you do with this information?  Search in the article databases dedicated to those disciplines. Here's a list of databases for each discipline, by campus.

• Berkeley databases 
• Davis databases
• Irvine databases
• Los Angeles databases
• Merced databases
• Riverside databases
• San Diego databases
• Santa Barbara databases
• Santa Cruz

"I'm writing a paper on World War II." 

Often students start their research with a very general topic, even though they may realize the topic is too large to deal with in a 10-15 page paper.  Faculty and librarians tell them, "You have to narrow this down."  But how do you narrow a topic?

Ask yourself--

• What discipline am I working in?  If you are in a sociology class, ask a sociological question about World War II, like "How did WWII affect women?"  If it's a political science class, your question might be something like "How did WWII affect presidential elections in the US?"

• What are some subsets or aspects of your topic.  Some good aspects are:
  • by place, such as a country or region
  • by time period, such as a century, decade or year 
  • by population, such as men, women, ethnic group, youth, children or elderly

You can combine these ideas, "What were the major impacts of WWII on women in France, in the decade after the war?"

More ideas in our brief tutorial on topic selection and narrowing. 

Unsure how to start a paper or research project? Think maybe you could stand to brush up on search strategies?

If this sounds familiar, Library Workshop: Research 101 has you covered. This interactive tutorial explores six stages of the research process. You can view it from start to finish, or focus on specific sections as needed:

1: Begin Your Research

Starting strategies, from choosing a topic to finding the right keywords.

What sort of articles and data do you need to find for your paper?  Scholarly, for sure, but there are many others:

• news
• laws and statutes
• statistics
• interviews
• 'primary sources'

It's helpful when doing your research to think about how you will use what you find.  The acronym BEAM helps you make sure you find materials that will do the job you need in your paper. Research papers need materials in all four categories.  

B = Background information.    Do you know the seminal works, major scholars and theories in your topical area?  What about the actual definitions of the disciplinary jargon you're using?  Scholarly encyclopedias are the best source of background information: look in Oskicat under your discipline, with the word encyclopedias, [sociology encyclopedias]. Could also use Wikipedia, a textbook, a newspaper, or any source that fills you in on your big topic. 

E = Evidence   Often called primary sources, evidence is the stuff you are studying in your research.  Evidence could be news coverage, laws, court cases, personal interviews, statistics or data... whatever helps you prove your thesis.

A = Analysis  Here are the secondary sources-- analysis is usually written by faculty scholars or technical experts, who are themselves analyzing evidence that they may include or cite.  As a student writing a paper, you are doing analysis, so it's important to refer to the work of others studying the same topic

M = Methodology  This means the methods and questions you will use to analyze your evidence.  Each discipline has its own favorite ways of asking questions and its own ideas about what sort of information can serve as evidence.  You must know which methods are suitable to the disciplines you are working within.  To find methodology, search for books by using the name of the discipline and the word methodology.  E.g. Sociology method*.

[Bizup, Joseph.  "BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing." Rhetoric Review Vol. 27, Iss. 1, 2008]

Not to be confused with a book review, a literature review surveys scholarly articles, books and other sources (e.g. dissertations, conference proceedings) relevant to a particular issue, area of research, or theory, providing a description, summary, and critical evaluation of each work. The purpose is to offer an overview of significant literature published on a topic.

Similar to primary research, development of the literature review requires four stages:

• Problem formulation—which topic or field is being examined and what are its component issues?
• Literature search—finding materials relevant to the subject being explored
• Data evaluation—determining which literature makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the topic
• Analysis and interpretation—discussing the findings and conclusions of pertinent literature

Literature reviews should comprise the following elements:

• An overview of the subject, issue or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review
• Division of works under review into categories (e.g. those in support of a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative theses entirely)
• Explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others
• Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research

In assessing each piece, consideration should be given to:

• Provenance—What are the author's credentials? Are the author's arguments supported by evidence (e.g. primary historical material, case studies, narratives, statistics, recent scientific findings)?
• Objectivity—Is the author's perspective even-handed or prejudicial? Is contrary data considered or is certain pertinent information ignored to prove the author's point?
• Persuasiveness—Which of the author's theses are most/least convincing?
• Value—Are the author's arguments and conclusions convincing? Does the work ultimately contribute in any significant way to an understanding of the subject?

A literature review may constitute an essential chapter of a thesis or dissertation, or may be a self-contained review of writings on a subject. In either case, its purpose is to:

• Place each work in the context of its contribution to the understanding of the subject under review
• Describe the relationship of each work to the others under consideration
• Identify new ways to interpret, and shed light on any gaps in, previous research
• Resolve conflicts amongst seemingly contradictory previous studies
• Identify areas of prior scholarship to prevent duplication of effort
• Point the way forward for further research
• Place one's original work (in the case of theses or dissertations) in the context of existing literature

The literature review itself, however, does not present new primary scholarship.

[Thank you UC Santa Cruz Library for this text.]

• EconLit
  Scholarly articles on economics, finance and business topics.
  
• Business Source Complete
  Scholarly and general articles on business topics.
  
• Factiva
  Wall St. Journal and other business news. International coverage.
  

• Academic Search Complete
  articles in more than 10,900 journals - scholarly and general articles
  
• Project MUSE
  articles from 250 scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences.
  
• ArticleFirst
  articles from 11,000 popular magazines and scholarly journals
  
• JSTOR
  Includes over 1000 scholarly journals - scholarly -- not current
  

• PAIS International
  Not just scholarly articles -- also * government documents, * statistical directories, * research reports, * conference reports, * and web sources related to public policy, politics, economics, and social issues worldwide.
  
• Sociology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection
  articles from 33 scholarly journals in sociology.
  
• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
  Scholarly -- Abstracts only -- covers political science and related fields: international relations, law and politics, political economy, public administration, and public policy.
  

Three important databases for research in History.

• America: History and Life
  Indexes over 2,000 journals published worldwide on the history of the US and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes all key English-language historical journals; selected historical journals from major countries, state, and local history journals; and a targeted selection of hundreds of journals in the social sciences and humanities.
  
• Historical Abstracts
  Indexes over 2,000 journals, as well as historical book reviews and dissertations, published worldwide about all aspects of world history (excluding US and Canada) from 1450 to the present.
  
• JSTOR
  Includes over 1000 scholarly journals with access to more than 2 million articles. JSTOR does not include the most recent 3-5 years of the journals.
  

Melvyl has become a good place to start your search for scholarly articles because it displays the contents of some article databases.  While it does not include as many articles as the databases like Academic Search Complete or JSTOR, it is easy to use, because it is a one-stop search.

Within Melvyl you can turn on or turn off specific databases if you find the results aren't relevant.

The newspaper databases listed here contain articles published mostly after 1985.  For historical topics use Historical Newspapers [Proquest] database

• LexisNexis Academic
  Includes over 6,000 individual titles of international, national and local newspapers and wire services; radio and television transcripts; and business, medical, industry, and legislative magazines, journals, and newsletters.
  
• ProQuest Newspapers
  Indexes the New York Times (1999-present), Los Angeles Times (1985-present), Wall Street Journal (1982-present).
  
• Access World News
  articles from 600 U.S. and over 700 international news sources.
  
• Alt-Press Watch
  Alternative, radical, and independent magazines, newspapers, and journals in North America.
  

How can you get books in Washington DC?  Not from your campus library, sorry to say.

But you do have access to academic and professional libraries in DC:

• Collections at your internship can be helpful

• The Library of Congress is open to you.  It's very big and has a lot, but you have to go there to use materials-- Library of Congress basic facts.

• You can read [not borrow] books from academic libraries in the DC area, including Howard University, American University, Georgetown University and George Washington University. 

• To find books in these and other DC libraries, use Melvyl.   How-to video

Since you are away from your library, electronic books become even more convenient for your research.  All campuses purchase ebooks, and there are various ways you can find them, but these differ by campus. 

A basic approach is to use your library's catalog.  Limit your search results to online resources-- this usually requires an advanced search.  Here's an example, using the Santa Barbara catalog [quick video]

You can also use Melvyl and limit the results to your own campus. 

So you need scholarly resources for your paper.  These can be either books or articles: How do you know when to use which?

Books

•  Long•  Information tends to be less current because it takes time to write and publish a book. •  Subject matter is broad; can give an overview of a topic •  Find them using a library catalog

Book chapters

•  Briefer; like an article •  Information tends to be less current because it takes time to write and publish a book. •  Subject matter is narrow, like an article; could be a case study for example. •  Find them using a database/ search engine, like JSTOR

Articles

•  Briefer •  Information tends to be more recent than books •  But not as current as news items •  Subject matter is narrow; could be a case study for example •  Find them using a database/ search engine, like JSTOR

For more information see our tutorial

Before you can access Library resources from off campus make sure you have configured your computer with proxy server settings.

After you make a one-time change in your web browser settings, the proxy server will ask you to log in with a CalNet ID or Library PIN when you click on the link to a licensed resource.

Google Scholar is an easy way to do interdisciplinary research, and with some settings changes can become even more useful.  You need a Google account to use these features.

• Make Google display links to full text of articles that your library subscribes to:

Open Scholar.  Click on the gear icon in the upper right corner, and choose 'scholar preferences'. In the new window, scroll down to 'Library Links', type the name of your campus.  Choose the name of your campus as well as "Open Worldcat Search".

• Set up a Google Scholar Alert to be automatically notified when new articles are added to Google on topics of interest: 

Do your search in Google Scholar. Look in the green toolbar for the envelope icon, and click it.  New items will be sent to your email account as they are found by Google.

• Ever wanted to trace an article’s impact? Google now permits searching within citing articles.

Do a Google Scholar search. Click on the "Cited by" link under a citation and select the "Search within articles citing..." checkbox.

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