Political Science Librarian
2 North (Core) Rm. 2303
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Evanston, IL 60208
Background Information, Developing a Question, Selecting Keywords for Searching
Below are select encyclopedias, bibliographies, dictionaries, reviews and handbooks. Resources like these can help with:
- Providing overviews and definitions as well as and background information or literature reviews of a topic
- Helping to identify or refine a topic
- Providing facts on a topic
- Including bibliographies that lead to additional sources of information on your topic
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Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Politics This link opens in a new window The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics complements and reinforces our commitment to the community of scholars and students in this field, as it provides hundreds of incisive articles on both fundamental and innovative topics. And uniquely, it is designed to present various perspectives on important approaches, issues, and topics, reflective of the tensions and debates that make political science such an exciting field. - Publisher
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Oxford Handbooks Online - Political Science This link opens in a new window NOTE: In left margin, under Availability, select "All content I have access to". Access to content from 2012-2023. Oxford Handbooks Online in Political Science offers thorough introductions to topics and a critical survey of the current state of scholarship in the field of Political Science.
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Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window Online version of many Oxford University Press reference works, ranging from specialized dictionaries and companions to major reference works such as the Encyclopedia of Human Rights, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States, and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, among many others.
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Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new window Offers annotated bibliographies of the most important books and articles on specific topics in a growing range of subject areas. Particularly useful for anyone beginning research.
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Annual Review of Political Science This link opens in a new window Annual edited volume that covers significant developments in the field of political science including political theory and philosophy, international relations, political economy, political behavior, American and comparative politics, public administration and policy, and methodology. Covers 1998-present.
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Sage Reference and Academic Books This link opens in a new window An online collection of subject encyclopedias and handbooks covering a wide-variety of subjects in the social sciences. Particularly strong for handbook coverage.
Use NUSearch to browse for books, book chapters and reference entries to build background information.
How do you move from a research question to searching in a database? You first have to pick out keywords from your research question.
After you have an initial project idea, you can think deeper about the idea by developing a "Topic + Question + Significance" sentence. This formula came from Kate Turabian's Student's Guide to Writing College Papers. Turabian notes that you can use it plan and test your question, but do not incorporate this sentence directly into your paper (p. 13):
TOPIC: I am working on the topic of __________,
QUESTION: because I want to find out __________,
SIGNIFICANCE: so that I can help others understand __________.
Turabian, Kate L. Student's Guide to Writing College Papers. 4th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2010.
Another way to think about question development:
- Which specific subset of the topic you can focus on? Specific demographic groups, people, places, times
- Is there something about this topic that is not already addressed in scholarship?
- Is there a relationship you can explore:
- cause/effect
- compare/contrast
- current/historical
- group/individual
- opinion/reason
- problem/solution