Public Policy

PUAD 625 - Samuel Brown - February 21, 2011

• PowerPoint

Not sure how to write a literature review?  Check out the following links.

• Literature Reviews (The Writing Center - University of North Carolina )
• Literature Reviews: An Overview for Graduate Students.  (Video from NC State Libraries)
• Sample APA Papers: Literature Review (OWL Writing Center, Purdue University)
  This is an example of a literature review, marked up with helpful comments on how to write one.
• Sample APA Papers for Students Interested in Learning APA Style (Illinois State University)
  An example of an empirical research report in APA style. There is an explanation of how the beginning of the paper usually contains a reveiw of the previous literature the topic.
• The Literature Review: A few tips on Conducting It (University of Toronto Writing Center)

Journal articles are often difficult to find through search engines like Google or Bing. Search the following databases to find articles in this field.

• Electronic Discovery Service (EDS)
• Public Affairs Index
  
• ABI Inform 
  
• Military & Government Collection 
• JSTOR

Having trouble?

• Check out the Academic Search Premier Visual Guide.  Even though it is about one specific database, the concepts apply to many databases of journal articles available through Langsdale.
• Break down wordy topics like "political parties in the 1930's in Central Europe"
  • political parties and postwar and Central Europe
• Brainstorm synonyms for each of your keywords, and try out different combinations:
  • art and political and Central Europe
  • music and politics and Central Europe
  • waltz and society
  • painting and revolution and Eastern Europe
  • painting and society and Europe
• If you want specific articles which Langsdale Library doesn't own, you can order them through Interlibrary Loan.
  • Interlibrary Loan may take 1-2 weeks. Order early!
  • Articles can usually be e-mailed to you.
  • To request an article, go to the Interlibrary Loan page or click on the yellow FindIt button in the database.
  • For more help, see our Guide to Interlibrary Loan.

How do you track the evolution of an idea or theory over time?  Find a good article on your topic to use as a starting point (see Finding Journal Articles above). Then, follow the citations in that article and the citations to that article, following the flow of ideas back and forward in time.

Looking Back:

If you can find one good article about your theory, you can use it to find older articles. Look in its bibliography or works cited page.

Find out if the Langsdale Library owns the articles on a works cited page:

• A-Z Journal List

Going Forward:

If you can find one good article about your theory, you can use it to find newer articles, too.  Use a technique called citation tracking to "discover how many times a particular article has been cited by other articles."

Citation tracking tools:

• Google Scholar
  • For help, try the Langsdale Library Guide to Google Scholar.

• ISI Web of Knowledge
  UB access is to Journal Citation Reports Social Sciences Edition, Social Sciences Citation Index 1995-present and Arts & Humanities Citation Index(r) 1995-present.

Use the following tools to find books in libraries and online.

• WorldCat Local
  Searches for books in libraries across the world, but items at UB are listed first
• Google Books
  Search through the full text of many books.  Google Books often does not always have the full-text of a book available online.  Use the "find in a library" link, or do a search in WorldCat local to find a copy of a book you can borrow from Langsdale.