Professor Trish
Literature Review
Recent Literature
Social Science Abstracts—broad coverage of select journals covering all of the social sciences. It indexes articles published from 1984 to the present.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts indexes articles published in the field of political science and related areas from1975 to the present.
PAIS (Public Affairs Information Service) International covers global public policy and social issues. Provides access to articles, books, hearings, reports, government publications, Internet resources, and other publications from 120 countries, published 1972 to the present.
For older materials see the PAIS Archive, which covers 1915-1976.
America: History and Life—a database of over 2,000 journals published worldwide covering the history, politics and society of the United States and Canada. Coverage from 1954 to the present.
Academic Search Premier—scholarly journals and popular magazines and newspapers covering all subject areas.
JSTOR--limited collection of full text journals in the humanities and social sciences.
Project Muse—full text collection of journals published by university presses—humanities and social sciences.
Search Worldcat for bibliographies on your topic.
Paper Indexes to Older Literature
International Political Science Abstracts (1951-1993)
International Index (1955-1965)
Social Sciences and Humanities Index (1965-1974)
Social Sciences Index (1974-1993)
Citation-Tracking Tools
America: History and Life and Academic Search Premier allow you to see which articles in the database cite a given author. Click on "Cited References" at the top of the search screen.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts will show if any other articles in the database cite a given article. Look for the "Cited by" link on the last line of the result.
Google Scholar also lets you see who has cited a given book or article. Search for the title on the advanced search screen and click on "Cited by" on the last line of the result.
If you have online access to a Google Scholar article through the Grinnell College Libraries you will see a "Full Text @ My Library" link next to the title. For printed journals or books, you will need to search the library catalog.
Data and Other Primary Sources:
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Data Archive
Download raw data from various surveys and perform your own analysis on it.
American National Election Studies (ANES)—time-series data on voting behavior and political opinions back to 1948. Raw data from the interviews can be downloaded and analyzed.
Polling the Nations compiles more than 14,000 surveys conducted by more than 700 polling organizations in the United States and more than 80 other countries from 1986 to the present. Polling the Nations only provides statistics (e.g., 66 percent of respondents support a candidate), not raw data or demographic breakdowns.
Guide to Public Opinion Poll Websites: Polling Data from Around the World.
CQ Voting and Elections Collection—data, analysis, explanations, historical documents on the American voter, parties, campaigns, and elections.
CQ Weekly provides updates on the activities of all of the branches of government. It is online from 1983 forward; Burling also has print copies from 1960 through 2006 on the third floor.
Information from this site is compiled into the CQ Almanac.
Congressional Quarterly (CQ) Almanac
Ref JK1 .C66
Most recent volume in reference; volumes back to 1960 on the second floor. Covers activity in the two houses of Congress during the previous years.
America Votes
Ref. JK 1967 .A8
Voting statistics for national and statewide elections, 1956 to the present. Some of this information is also contained in the online CQ Voting and Elections Collection.
Statistical Abstracts of the United States
Print copies in Perm Reserve & Ref HA202
Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present. In print at Ref HA202 .H57 2006 and online.
You can download tables in Excel, CSV, and zip files. Statistics are taken from the Statistical Abstracts of the United States.
Look for more sources of statistics in the Burling reference collection. Most statistics on politics and elections will be in the JK section. Statistics on economics and society will be in the H section.
Lexis Nexis-Congressional Universe—full text access to Congressional documents and reports, Senate and House bills, laws, regulations. Take advantage of the extensive help screens and examples for searching this database.
Project Vote Smart—information about all candidates’ voting records, position statements, speeches, etc. This is a good source for finding out about candidates in local elections and from third parties.
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (1993-present)
The bound public documents of earlier presidents can be found on the 2nd floor in J 81 and J 82.
Current Events and Historical News Sources:
LexisNexis (Academic)
Choose “Power Search” for the most flexibility. Specifying a date range is often helpful to avoid being overwhelmed. See "Tips for using search connectors" for information on using AND, OR, W/2, etc. These will help narrow down your search. The Source options also allow you to choose a language and/or a country.
To search a specific newspaper such as the New York Times or the Washington Post, click on “Sources” tab in the upper left hand corner of the screen and type the name of the newspaper or other source you'd like to search in the appropriate box. (Includes the New York Times full text back to 1980).
Access World News (foreign news sources and U.S. newspapers—national and regional)
Includes U.S. sources and sources from around the world. Foreign language sources are either originally in English or have been translated into English. America’s Papers provides coverage of many regional newspapers including Iowa papers such as the
Des Moines Register, The Cedar Rapids Gazette, and The Iowa City Press Citizen.
New York Times
The libraries have the entire run of the New York Times on microfilm from 1851 forward.
We also have a printed index to the entire run of the New York Times from 1851 to the present. This index is set up in a manner that allows you to follow the progression of a story over time. You may get some insight into a story to see how it unfolds and public awareness of details change.
For more information on searching the NY Times see: http://www.lib.grin.edu/research/newyorktimes.html
Includes an archive. If you use this, you may find articles freely available, but if not, you won’t know whether or not we have access to the papers online or not (or have them on microfilm for that matter). This works well as an index, but you’ll need to check the library catalog, use Lexis-Nexis or Access World News or check with a reference librarian to find out how to get access to the papers indexed.
Rebecca Stuhr, Grinnell College Libraries, February 2006.
Modified by Julia Bauder, September 24, 2008
