Maia Carter and Julie Mertus,
Getting Started
Regardless of how brilliantly you write and analyze,
the quality (and usefulness) of your papers (especially when they are
literature reviews) depends greatly on your sources. There are many ways to find sources, and each
person has their own preferred means of going about it. Depending on the way you organize your literature
review you will look for different types of sources. Below is a listing of helpful websites. The library also has a nice collection of
on-line databases, which are accessible via the library website (www.library.american.edu) and the
electronic collections. I find
Periodical Abstracts, Project Muse, and ABI/Inform generally more helpful than
JSTOR, which can take forever to download or search. JSTOR is quite helpful, however, if you are
looking for a specific journal, title, or author.
Once you have decided on your topic, it is best to
begin the search with a few words or phrases central to your subject. For example, if you are interested in “
One of the greatest challenges in conducting
research is knowing when to keep what you find and –
even harder – when to throw it away.
Your selection criteria will vary according to your project goals and
intended audience. You may seek the most authoritative articles and look for
leading scholars and top journals. Sometimes you will want the most current
work on a topic. On other occasions you
will be searching for work that has had the most influence over time and, thus,
look at older works. Frequently, you
will be looking for a combination of the “latest word” and core texts. To find
seminal or “touchstone” articles or books, look in the “works cited” sections
of several articles or books and find the overlapping ones. Then find those sources, and find the
commonalities. Reading the introduction
of books on similar topics can also help highlight central ideas or authors to
include.
Especially for literature reviews, it is important
to look at the diversity of your sources, both in terms of author (gender,
national origin, generation, other experiences) and
perspective (disciplinary focus, topic, worldview, methodological orientation,
conclusions, etc.). You may need to
discard certain books and articles from your pile if you find too much overlap
in any one particular area, and you may need to re-search for contending
viewpoints.
A word of caution: searches that rely entirely on
the computer will miss relevant work.
Computer searches are only as good as the search terms and parameters
you input. Also, many sources may not be
available through your particular search engine. You may need to examine specific data bases,
for example, those for government documents or for nongovernmental organization
reports. And – gasp – you may have to
get out of your chair and go to an organization to obtain a document, interview
a source, unearth an unpublished speech.
Don’t discount the importance of old-fashioned research
serendipity. When looking on the stacks
(yes, you can still walk into a library) for a book or journal, you may find
what you are really looking for. (Research
is a lot like life in these respects…)
Questions to Ask
Before you begin your research, consider the
following questions:
·
What is my topic?
·
What disciplines have something to say about my topic?
·
What are the main reference tools for my discipline?
·
How can I limit my search? By time
frame, language, medium, library…?
·
What authorities are most relevant for my purpose?
·
How can I keep track of my research?
·
What is my back-up plan if my original search strategy does not pan out?
·
Who can help me with my research? (Who
has experience conducting similar research)?
Other Resources
In addition to the AU library Web page, you may find
these sources to be useful for planning and conducting your research. (Email additional suggestions to:
mertus@american.edu)
http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/social_sciences/political.html
finding sources
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjb3v/rjb.html foreign affairs on-line
http://www3.uakron.edu/hefe/socsci.html research social sciences
http://www.uky.edu/Subject/fa.html
foreign affairs
http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/databases/details/dbinformation_SocialSciAbs.html
social science abstracts
http://www.promo.net/pg/index.html
read
classics on-line for free with Project Gutenberg
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://library.info.usaid.gov/ USAID’s library catalog and website
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem.html/ American Memory website
with historical and cultural info on
http://www.loc.gov Library of Congress website