Finding Background Sources
Background information on the topic of your group project can help you focus and refine your research. It can provide you with a big picture context within which you can place your own work. It can provide information from reliable sources that provides a framework for readers of the report that your group produces.
Where to start?
- A database called CQ Researcher provides overviews of many current and controversial topics. It's an excellent starting point, providing an overview of the topic, historical background, current situation and future outlook, a chronology, maps and graphs, and a bibliography of additional sources.
- Be sure to use the BU Libraries Search and search for your topic along with a keyword such as: dictionary, encyclopedia or handbook to locate helpful reference sources for your topic.
Finding Books
Click the links below to see results for each topic in BU Libraries Search:
Finding Articles: Journals
Click here to search for journal titles within the the BU Libraries.
Finding Articles: Databases
To browse the full list of databases pertaining to Political Science click here.
- American National Election Studies This link opens in a new window The American National Election Studies (ANES) open-access resource contains national surveys and pilot studies and provides large, multifaceted datasets to researchers.
- Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new window CMMC indexes journals covering communication, mass media, linguistics, discourse, rhetoric, sociolinguistics, communication theory, language, logic, organizational communication and other closely related fields of study.
- Congressional Bills This link opens in a new window Contains all published versions of bills from the 103rd (1993-1994) Congress to the present.
- Congressional Committee Prints This link opens in a new window The subjects vary based on the committee. Includes historical and confidential staff reports. Full text from the 84th Congress (1955-56) through the present.
- Oxford Encyclopedia of American Political and Legal History This link opens in a new window Covers political and legal history in the United States, including key events, historical actors, presidential elections, court cases, and larger political and legal trends throughout American history.
- Policy File Index This link opens in a new window Policy File Index contains information from over 350 public policy think tanks, nongovernmental organizations, research institutes, university centers, advocacy groups, and other entities.
- Policy Map This link opens in a new window Easy-to-use online mapping and visualization tool. Downloadable U.S. demographic, economic and social data by city, state, zip code, county or census tract. Types of data include crime, housing, health, education and occupations, derived from both public and proprietary sources.
- Political Extremism and Radicalism in the 20th Century This link opens in a new window Political extremism and radicalism in the twentieth century is a compilation of archival collections covering a wide range of fringe political movements. It has been sourced from libraries and archives across the world. Covers a broad assortment of both far-right and left political groups. It offers a mixture of materials, including periodicals, campaign propaganda, government records, oral histories, and various ephemera, which allow researchers to explore unorthodox social and political movements. The collections cover the 1900s through 2010s.
- Political Science Database This link opens in a new window Political Science Database gives users access to hundreds of leading political science, public policy, and international relations journals. It also includes thousands of recent full-text doctoral dissertations on political science topics, together with working papers, conference proceedings, country reports, policy papers and other sources.
- Politics Collection This link opens in a new window This collection, which includes PAIS Index, Policy File Index, Political Science Database, and Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, provides abstracts, indexing and full text of journal articles, country reports, dissertations, think-tank reports, working papers, government documents and more, including full-text from many leading political science and international relations journals.
