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Political Research: a Guide to Literature and Sources

Political Research: a Guide to Literature and Sources. Mamtimyn Sunuodula. What Do I learn?. Critical evaluation of academic literature and sources Types of literature and their usage Sources for secondary academic research Sources for primary literature

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Political Research: a Guide to Literature and Sources

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  1. Political Research: a Guide to Literature and Sources Mamtimyn Sunuodula

  2. What Do I learn? • Critical evaluation of academic literature and sources • Types of literature and their usage • Sources for secondary academic research • Sources for primary literature • How to manage: Referencing and bibliographic management

  3. Project themes • Trust in International Relations • Participation and British Politics • Communitarianism and Political Theory • Social and Intellectual History of Political Thought • Territorialisation of the South China Sea • International Political Economy

  4. Evaluating Academic Literature

  5. Reverse Pyramid of Academic Sources

  6. ∂ Reference Sources (short review essays, definitions, etc.) • Some online references: • Credo Reference • Blackwell Reference Online • Oxford Dictionary of National Biography • Oxford Islamic Studies Online • Encyclopaedia of Islam

  7. ∂ Books • Use the Library Catalogue: http://library.dur.ac.uk/ • All material held in Durham University Libraries • Author, title, keyword, subject searching • Reserve, recall, renew items in Library • Includes theses, e-books(Past Masters series, Oxford Scholarship Online Politics collection)

  8. Searching Tips • Adding * to the end of a word finds all the variants beginning with that word, e.g. politic* = political, politics, politicians, etc. • Phrase search with double quotation marks, e.g. “political theory” • Variant spelling can be found by replacing the varying letter with ? mark, e.g. organi?ation = organization, organisation

  9. Primary Source Literature

  10. News, Current Affairs, Newspapers, Magazines and Newswires • Nexis UK is an aggregated collection of newspapers, magazines, newswires and broadcasts (including BBC Monitoring Online) from around world.  It is mainly in English and covers archives of newspapers going back up 30 years.

  11. Factiva factiva is similar to Nexis UK, but the coverage includes publications in more than 25 languages (including Russian, Chinese, Japanese and many others) 

  12. Statistical Data • Economic and social data service (ESDS)Vast array of national and international statistics, including British Social Attitude Survey and UN data • EIU Country ReportsContains monthly review and forecasts of political, social and economic developments around world country by country

  13. Historical Sources • Pre-20th Century Books Online • Early English Books Online • Eighteenth Century Collections Online • Nineteenth century collections online • 19th Century British Newspapers • Economist, Times Digital Archives • State Papers Online • House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Online

  14. ∂ Other sources for e-books: Google Books

  15. ∂ Other sources for academic sources: Google Scholar

  16. Google Scholar • By far the largest source of reference • Many in full-text, includes dissertations • Settings can be configured to display link to Durham University from the references and export references to EndNote • Citation counts are displayed which can be an indication of impact • Everything in one place and difficult to differentiate

  17. Document Delivery Service • This service can be used when the required material are not held in Durham • Journal articles are normally delivered electronically to desktop • Books can take about a week to arrive and still quicker than purchasing and processing a new book for the Library • There is normally a charge for this service

  18. Reference Management • Gather and Store Information • Retrieve and use information for citation and references

  19. Reference Management Tools • EndNote (Networked PC Service) • EndNote Web (via Web of Knowledge) • Zotero (free web based reference management software) • Mendeley

  20. Summing up…

  21. Any questions? • Next Week… • Practical Workshop in Bill Bryson Library

  22. ∂ Getting help Library web pages: http://www.dur.ac.uk/library/government/ Contact: m.a.sunuodula@durham.ac.uk

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