Office Location: Education Psychology Library, 2600 Tolman Hall
Contact Info:
510-643-6224
About this Guide
This guide contains links and resources that will assist in researching and writing a Legal Studies thesis.
This guide has been archived
Please note: this course guide was created during a previous semester, and is no longer being actively maintained. For a list of current course guides, please see http://lib.berkeley.edu/alacarte/course-guides.
Find eBooks Related to Legal Studies
The Library offers over 100 e-book and e-text collections in specific subject areas. E-books in collections marked * are also available through OskiCat and Melvyl. You can limit your search in OskiCat to "Available online," and in Melvyl to "Online resources."
If you are unsure about your topic, use OskiCat (UCB Catalog--Does not include Law) to find reference books. A reference book will provide a high-level overview and/or background on your topic.
Tips:
Limit your search to either Doe Reference or the Institute of Governmental Studies Library.
Be broad in your search. For example, if your topic is on education of non-US citizens, search immigration.
Visit the Library and ask for help.
Try your search (you can limit to the above locations once you see results by changing the dropdown menu).
Find Dissertations
Find Dissertations by searching Digital Dissertations, which indexes over 1.5 million dissertations completed in North America (including UC) and European universities from 1861 to the present. Listings after 1980 include abstracts, and some feature 24-page excerpts.
Full-text Access: Online full-text of UC dissertations (from 1996) can be found by searching Digital Dissertations and also appear in Library catalog search results. UC Berkeley dissertations in print prior to 1996 may be found by searching the Library catalogs. Dissertations done at other UC campuses prior to 1996 or ouside the UC system must be obtained through Interlibrary Loan or using the "Request" option in Melvyl.
You may also limit a search in OskiCat to dissertations by changing the drop down from "Entire Collection" to "Dissertations/Theses":
Google Books
Why use Google Books? Library catalogs (like OskiCat) don't search inside books; using a library catalog, you can search only information about the book (title, author, Library of Congress subject headings, etc.). Google Books will let you search inside books, which can be very useful for hard-to-find information. You can then use Google Books' Find in a Library link to locate the book in a UC Berkeley library, or search OskiCat to see if UC Berkeley owns the book.Try it now:
Off-campus Access to Library Resources
Before you can access UCB Library resources from off campus or via your laptop or other mobile devices, make sure you have configured your machine using one of two simple methods (Proxy Server is the quickest and easiest):
VPN (Virtual Private Network) After you install and run the VPN "client" software on your computer, you can log in with a CalNet ID to establish a secure connection with the campus network.
Citation Linker
Have a citation? Use Citation Linker to go directly to the article.
Get immediate access to journal articles, books and other publications (or request them when they are not available) by entering a title and other citation information.
When a publication is available online: The UC-eLinks window will provide a link to the publisher's web site that should contain the full text of the publication if UC (systemwide or your home campus) subscribes to the electronic version of the publication.
When a publication is not available online: The UC-eLinks window will offer other options such as the ability to check campus library holdings in the Melvyl Catalog (and where you can sometimes find that items ARE available online), or to Request the item via Interlibrary Loan (ILL) if UC (systemwide or your home campus) does not subscribe to the electronic version of the publication.
Article Databases
Use these article databases to find information on your research topic.
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. Wide geographic coverage and translations from foreign-language sources, as well as news services like the Associated Press, Agence France Press, El Pais and Xinhua (New China) News Agency.
LegalTrac Indexes journals, law reviews, and magazines related to legal research and commentary on case studies, government regulations, the practice of law, statutes, taxation, and international law.
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. Articles covered were written from 1954 to the present
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.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts Indexes books, journals, and dissertations within the field of political science and related to international relations, law and politics, political economy, public administration, and public policy. Search can be combined with PAIS and International Bibliography of the Social Sciences.
PAIS International Indexes books, journals, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, and web sources related to public policy, politics, economics, and social issues worldwide. Includes publications from over 120 countries. Some of the indexed materials are published in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The Archive covers English-language material only. Search can be combined with Worldwide Political Sciences Abstracts and International Bibliography of the Social Sciences.
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) Indexes over 3000 journals, books, chapters, and book reviews in the fields of economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology from more than 100 countries. More than 70 languages are represented, with 30% percent of records published in languages other than English. Search can be combined with PAIS and Worldwide Political Science Abstracts.
Google Scholar Lists journal articles, books, pre-prints, and technical reports in many subject areas (though more specialized article databases may cover any given field more completely). Some listings include links to related articles and to other sources that cite the item. Includes content from free resources (such as ArXiv.org and university websites) as well as subscription resources (such as electronic journals from selected publishers). Use the UC-eLinks option, when available, to find the UCB access to a publication. This system is still in "beta" stage, so results may vary as Google makes changes in its programming.
JSTOR Includes over 1000 scholarly journals with access to more than 2 million articles. JSTOR is an archive which means that current issues (generally the most recent 3-5 years) of the journals are not yet available.
Project MUSE 250 scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences. Topics include literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics and many others.
GenderWatch Includes magazines, academic journals, newspapers, newsletters, books, pamphlets, conference proceedings, and government reports that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of subject areas.
Women's Studies International Indexes books, journals, magazines, and other resources related to research and commentary on women and women's issues, feminism, and gender. Platform change: All NISC databases have switched to the EBSCOhost interface.
Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Knowledge) Indexes over 1,700 journals spanning 50 disciplines, as well as covering individually selected items from over 3,300 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals, and provides searching of footnoted citations. Use the link above, then under Current Limits, specify Social Sciences Citation Index. For more guidance on using this database see the following tutorials: Creating Alerts and Creating an RSS Feed.
Criminology: A SAGE Full-Text Collection Includes the full-text of 23 journals published by SAGE and participating societies, some journals going back 23 years. Covers such subjects as Criminal Justice, Juvenile Delinquency, Corrections, Forensic Psychology, and Family and Domestic Violence.
Sociological Abstracts Indexes over 1,900 journals, books, dissertations, and reviews in the social sciences on sociological topics as well as selected anthropology, criminology, demography, law, social psychology, and urban development.(Search all CSA/Illumina Social Sciences databases.)
Social Work Abstracts Indexes more than 450 journals related to social work on topics such as homelessness, AIDS, child and family welfare, aging, substance abuse, legislation, and community organization. Platform change: this database is now available on the EBSCOhost platform.
Social Services Abstracts Indexes scholarly and professional journals worldwide related to the fields of social work, social welfare, human services, community development, and social policy. (Search all CSA/Illumina Social Sciences databases.)
Education Full Text (plus Education Index Retro) Indexes articles from English-language periodicals and yearbooks published in the United States and elsewhere on all topics related to education.
Index Islamicus Indexes literature on Islam, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Over 3,000 journals are monitored for inclusion in the database, together with conference proceedings, monographs, multi-authored works and book reviews. Journals and books are indexed down to the article and chapter level.
Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management Indexes over 6,000 journals, conference proceedings, reports, monographs, books, and government publications covering agricultural biotechnology, air quality, aquatic pollution, bacteriology, ecology, energy resources, environmental biotechnology, environmental engineering, environmental impact statements, hazardous waste, industrial hygiene, microbiology, pollution, risk assessment, safety science, toxicology, water pollution, waste management, and water resource issues. Includes 13 subfiles such as: Ecology Abstracts, Health and Safety Science Abstracts, Pollution Abstracts and Water Resources Abstracts.
Finding Citations From an Article or Book
If you have an academic/scholarly book or article and what to see want has cited it, you can. Use Social Sciences Citation Linker (Web of Knowledge) to find how many times something has been cited. This can also lead you to other resources for your research projects.
Amazon.com can also help you find which books have cited a book you know about. Scroll down to the bottom of an amazon book page to find the books. Do not buy the books from Amazon, instead use OskiCat or Melvyl to locate and borrow the book.
How many times an article/book has been cited is also one way to judge it's impact, though keep in mind that a good article/book can be praised as many times as a bad one can be ridiculed.
Gov Info
These resouces can help you discover and locate information from the government. More resources can be located in the Library's Government Information pages.
American Presidency Project Contains all major publications of the U.S. Office of the President, including: Public Papers of the President, Inaugural Addresses, Executive Orders, Signing Statements, and other information such as radio addresses, party platforms, videos of debates, and popularity polling data. This project was developed by two political science professors at UCSB.
ProQuest Congressional One stop shopping for U.S. congressional publications. Provides index and abstracts of congressional publications back to 1789, including full text Congressional Hearings from 1824-present, full text Committee Prints from 1830-present, full text Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports from 1916-present, full text United States Congressional Serial Set from 1789-1969, and legislative histories from 1970-present.
CQ Electronic Library A reference source on American politics and government that includes the following modules: CQ Congress Collection, CQ Political Handbook of the World, CQ Researcher Plus Archive, CQ Supreme Court, CQ Voting and Elections, CQ Washington Information Directory, CQ Weekly. Access individual modules or search across all CQ collections.
CQ Weekly Provides nonpartisan information about US government and congressional affairs and subjects of concern. This online version also provides access to some articles prior to when they appear in the print version of CQ Weekly. Part of the CQ Electronic Library collection.
These links will guide you to various sources for statistics and data. If you are interested in manipulating a dataset on your own, please visit the Doe Library's Data Lab in 189 Doe.
Proquest Statistical Datasets Provides fast and easy one-stop shopping to more than 5.3 billion (and growing) data points from licensed and public domain datasets. Sources of data include local, state and international governments and organizations. Allows for customization of the data by selecting subjects, variable of interest, and the ability to view your data in side-by-side tables, charts and even maps. Also provides quick graphs and chats for statistics in the news.
ProQuest Statistical Insight Provides access to indexing and statistical tables from three key sources: American Statistics Index (ASI; 1973-present), Statistics Reference Index (SRI; 1980-present), and Index to International Statistics (IIS; 1983-present). The American Statistics Index links to many full text documents published 1994-present.
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research Contains domestic and international survey data. The Center's Public Opinion Location Library (iPOLL) gives online access to a database including poll questions asked in US from 1936 to present.
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Consortium of 325 institutions working together to acquire and preserve social science data. Maintained at University of Michigan, ICPSR receives, processes, and distributes data on social phenomena in 130 countries. Includes survey data, census records, election returns, economic data, and legislative records.
News Resources
Here are some general news and newsmedia databases. For a full listing of the Library's news resources, check this list.
Access World News Provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources. Offers strong regional coverage, indexing more than California newspapers such as Contra Costa Times (1995-current), Sacramento Bee (1984-current), San Francisco Chronicle (1985-current), and San Jose Mercury News (1985-current). Search categories include: California newspapers (121 titles), Greater Los Angeles (54 titles), major metropolitan titles (13 titles), Spanish-language news sources (48 titles), the World (almost 2000 titles), US (855 titles).
Factiva Provides general and business news and information from more than 9,000 sources in 22 languages, including influential local, national and international newspapers, leading business magazines, trade publications, and news wires. Includes the exclusive combination of The Wall Street Journal (1979-present), the Financial Times, Dow Jones and Reuters newswires and the Associated Press, as well as Reuters Fundamentals, and Bureau van Dijk company profiles.
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. Wide geographic coverage and translations from foreign-language sources, as well as news services like the Associated Press, Agence France Press, El Pais and Xinhua (New China) News Agency.
ProQuest Newspapers Indexes the New York Times (1999-present), Los Angeles Times (1985-present), Wall Street Journal (1982-present).
One of the largest hurdles of using Google is the amount you must weed through. Some searches result in thousands of pages; who has time to go through all that? You dont need to. Did you know you can manipulate a regular Google search with a couple hacks to your search. Its true! Try these search "tricks" during your next google search.
site:XXXXX This search tells google to limit your search to a particular site or domain. For instance, if you limit to site:berkeley.edu you would only search the Berkeley site. Similarly site:.gov would search only sites ending in .gov, and site:.edu would search only sites ending in .edu.
-XXXXX Adding a minus/hyphen sign "-" to a term will remove results with that term. This can be very helpfull when removing common words associated with your topic.
filetype:XXXX Using filetype: will only find certain file extentions (.doc, .pdf, .xcl, etc)
"XXX XXXX" Putting double quotes around a phrase will find only that phrase.
You can also combine some of these search hacks, such as adding -site:nytimes.com to remove results from the New York Times website. More search tricks can be found here.
Google Scholar
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.
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.
Make Google display links to full text of articles that Berkeley subscribes to:
Open Scholar. Click on scholar preferences [next to the search box]. Under Library Links, enter the word Berkeley. Choose up to three database providers we subscribe to: Full Text@IngentaConnect; UC eLinks; and Read article via OCLC.
The Bancroft Library has substantial holdings related to politics and government in California and the American West. These include all genres and formats including manuscript and archival collections, photographs and other pictorial materials, oral histories, sound recordings and videos, selected Government Documents, pamphlets and ephemera, along with books. The Bancroft Library is the largest special collections on the UCB campus, and includes both primary and secondary resources.
The collections include the papers of politicians such as Senators Alan Cranston, Thomas Kuchel, William Knowland, Hiram Johnson; of Representatives such as Meldon Levine, Robert Matsui, Thomas Lantos; of Governors such as Edmund (Pat). Brown, Culbert Olson, George Pardee, as well as many other local and nationally significant politicians.
We also have substantial holdings related to the law, including the papers of Lawyers: Charles Garry Legal Files, National Lawyer’s Guild Records, Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute Collections. There are pictorial materials associated with these collections, including photographs and court room drawings.
The collection also includes the Spanish/Mexican land grant cases for California which were adjudicated after the Mexican American war. These include the maps (or diseños) that were produced as part of the case file.
The Bancroft Library has many collections that relate indirectly to politics and the law including our substantial environmental collections, urban and city planning records, labor related collections, records related to agriculture and other industries in the American West, and many relevant collections.
University Archives are also part of The Bancroft Library. These records include the Office of the President for the University of California and the records of The University of California, Berkeley.
The Regional Oral History Office (ROHO) is a part of The Bancroft Library. They have produced oral histories related to many individuals involved in State government as well as oral histories related to prominent individuals involved with legal issues. The oral histories produced by this office can be accessed online through their website: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/.
Finding Resources in The Bancroft Library
Electronic access -- All formats can be searched on the University of California Berkeley Library’s online catalog Oskicat, http://oskicat.berkeley.edu/. The catalog description will include information the creator, extent of collection, subjects, any restrictions as to use, collection specific notes, and also will indicate location of material (onsite, NRLF). More extensive groupings of materials, including manuscripts and pictorial material may have detailed finding aids that will provide more detailed information about the contents of the collection. Patrons can order material online, which will be held at the Bancroft for one week at a time, and can be renewed throughout the semester. See: http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/storreq.cgi
Selected examples of LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SUBJECT HEADINGS
California – Politics and Government. Governors – California. Legislators – California. United States – Congress – Senate. United States – Congress – House of Representatives. Law—Political aspects – California. Lawyers—California. Judges – California. Freedom of speech. University of California, Berkeley. Students – Political activity. Academic freedom. Loyalty Oath – California. Legal ethics – California. Obsenity (Law) – United States. Japanese Americans -- Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945. Japanese Americans --Civil Rights Water rights – California. Suffrage – California.
Finding aids -- Because manuscript and archival collections are unique gatherings of materials, a finding aid in the form of an inventory, box list, or other summary of the intellectual organization of the collection is often available to help a researcher determine the contents of the materials. Finding aids provide an overview of how the collection is organized in order to facilitate access. It often will include a biographical or historical note about the creator, and include a scope and content note about what is in the collection, as well as indicate the size of the collection. Most of these are available in-house, but increasingly they are becoming available on the Internet. Access to the finding aid is essential to understanding the true content of a collection and for determining whether it is likely to satisfy a scholar's research needs.
ONLINE ARCHIVE OF CALIFORNIA (OAC)
The OAC, part of the California Digital Library (CDL) is a digital information resource that facilitates and provides access to materials such as manuscripts, photographs, and works of art held in libraries, museums, archives, and other institutions across California. The OAC includes a single, searchable database of "finding aids" to primary sources and to their digital facsimiles which are selectively available. Describing primary sources in detail, finding aids are the guides and inventories to collections held in archives, museums, libraries and historical societies. Access to the finding aid is essential for understanding the content of a collection and for determining whether it is likely to satisfy your research needs. OAC home page: http://oac.cdlib.org/
Citation management tools help you manage your research, collect and cite sources, and create bibliographies in a variety of citation styles. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, but any are easier than doing it by hand!
Zotero: A free plug-in that works exclusively with the Firefox browser: keeps copies of what you find on the web, permits tagging, notation, full text searching of your library of resources, works with Word, and has a free web backup service.
RefWorks - free for UC Berkeley users. It allows you to create your own database by importing references and using them for footnotes and bibliographies. Use the RefWorks New User Form to sign up.
"Plagiarism means using another's work without giving credit. You must put others' words in quotation marks and cite your source(s). Citation must also be given when using others' ideas, even when those ideas are paraphrased into your own words."
Plagiarism is a serious violation of academic and student conduct rules and is punishable with a failing grade and possibly more severe action. For more information, consult the following UC Berkeley websites:
"Ethics, copyright laws, and courtesy to readers require authors to identify the sources of direct quotations and of any facts or opinions not generally known or easily checked."--
Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition (Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press), p. 594
Why cite sources? Whenever you quote or base your ideas on another person's work, you must document the source you used. Even when you do not quote directly from another work, if reading that source contributed to the ideas presented in your paper, you must give the authors proper credit.
Citations allow readers to locate and further explore the sources you consulted, show the depth and scope of your research, and give credit to authors for their ideas. Citations provide evidence for your arguments and add credibility to your work by demonstrating that you have sought out and considered a variety of resources. In written academic work, citing sources is standard practice and shows that you are responding to this person, agreeing with that person, and adding something of your own. Think of documenting your sources as providing a trail for your reader to follow to see the research you performed and discover what led you to your original contribution.
How do you cite sources? The means to identify sources is to provide citations within your text linking appropriate passages to relevant resources consulted or quoted. This can be done through in-text parenthetic notes, footnotes, or endnotes. In addition, a bibliography or list of works cited, is almost always placed at the end of your paper. The citation system and format you use will be determined by the citation style you choose.
Below are links to guides for the three major styles used for most academic papers or research in the humanities, social sciences, and some scientific disciplines:
APA Style Guide (Purdue) - From the American Psychological Association. Often preferred in the fields of psychology and many other social sciences.
MLA Style Guide (Purdue) - From the Modern Language Association of America. Often preferred in the fields of literature, arts, humanities, and in some other disciplines.
Turabian & Chicago Styles Guide - From the work of Kate Turabian at the University of Chicago and the University of Chicago Press. Often preferred in history and many other disciplines.
How do you choose a style? Ask your instructor which style sheet he or she wishes you to use and if there are other special formatting instructions you should follow.
Where do I find the most authoritative information about these styles? If you have questions or citations not covered by the Library's guides, please consult one of the following official style manuals. If you consult other, less official manuals or online style guides that purport to explain these style, please be aware that these sometimes contain errors which conflict with the official guides:
APA Style
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 6th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2010 (call number: BF76.7.P83 2010, multiple libraries). Official APA style guide.
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009 (call number: LB2369.G53 2009, multiple libraries). A somewhat simplified guide, adequate for undergraduate and most other research papers.
MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2008 (call number: PN147.G444 2008, multiple libraries). For graduate students, scholars, and professional writers (more depth on copyright, legal issues, and writing theses, dissertations, and scholarly publishing).
Turabian Style
Turabian, Kate L. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996 (call number: LB2369.T8 1996, multiple libraries).
Chicago Style
The Chicago Manual of Style. 15th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003 (call number: Z253.U69 2003, multiple libraries).
How Do I Make an Appointment?
Thesis research and writing can very specific and a single library session may not provide you with all the information you need. You are more than welcome to contact the Political Science Librarian, Jesse Silva, via email or phone (email is preferred) to ask a question, set up an appointment, or get more help with anything related to the Library and research. Contact info is below:
Book a 30-minute appointment with a librarian who will help refine and focus research inquiries, identify useful online and print sources, and develop search strategies for humanities and social sciences topics.
Schedule, view, edit or cancel your appointment online (CalNetID required)
This service is for Cal undergraduates only. Graduate students and faculty should contact the library liaison to their department or program for specialized reference consultations.
