POLS 1101American Government

Library ResearchTips and Tools

Today’s Objective

• Identify Library Resources for POLI 1101

Search Strategies Library Services Finding Books and Articles LibGuides Evaluate Resources Citation Tools

Library Home page

• Search+ - 100 plus resources (broad)

• Books+ - multiple collections• Articles+ - subject disciplines (specific)

• LibGuides - research tools, “how to” • Services- Gil Express, Interlibrary Loan • Ask a Librarian! - In person, chat, email,

appointment, call

Clayton State University Library

Libraries Love to Share

Gil Express• Borrow books from other

GA universities (USG)• Search Gil Express Catalog• Request online or check out

in person• Arrive in 2-4 days• 28-day loan, renewable

Interlibrary loan (ILL)• Request electronic copy of

an article• Arrive in less than a week

by email• Borrow books from all types

of libraries– Arrive in 2-3 weeks– Loan period varies

Library Services -Interlibrary loan

Online formsFor Books For Articles

Information about Reserve Items

To Find the CSU CatalogClick on the “Books” Tab

Finding Course Reserve Items

Limit Search by Instructor, Department, Course, or Section

Let’s talk about keyword searching…

KEYWORDS

Everyday language

Easy to use

Flexible terms

Less accurate

Boolean Operators

• AND = narrow

• OR = expand

• NOT = exclude

women AND hypertension

hypertension OR “high blood pressure”

Jazz NOT ragtime (rag-time)

AND is automatically used by Google and other search engines to combine terms

Building a search strategy

Topic: Voting rights for ex-felons1. Can you create a research question? Example: Should the federal government lift the life ban on voting rights for ex-felons?

2. Break down the topic into keywords. Keywords: voting rights, ex-felons, federal government

3. Any sub-topics? Can you think of some other keywords or synonyms that we could use for this topic?

Find Alternative KeywordsBrainstorm for alternativewords.

Keywords: ex-felons, voting rights, federal government

Alternative Keywords: ex-convicts, “civil rights”, “political participation”

Let’s talk about subject searches…

Subject headings = More Precise Search Results

– Using Controlled vocabulary• Library of Congress Subject headings

– Using Limiters • Date • Scholarly peer reviewed • Full text

Special Indexing Tools to Target Your Searching

Types of Indexes Subject Terms

Medical & Allied Health Headings Thesaurus (Education, Psychology,

Medicine)

Find Books

Information About A BookTitle of Book

Place, publisher, date, (edition)

Author(s)

Location Circ Coll. Q223.T35 2010

Library of Congress subject headings

Streaming video, eBooks, physical books in the CSU Library

A Few Books in Political Science

What is GALILEO?

• GeorgiA Library LEarning Online (GALILEO)• A shared resource for libraries in the State of Georgia• Includes library catalogs• Includes library research databases• Includes other core resources and free information for

everyone• Academic libraries (Public and private)• Technical college libraries• Public libraries• K-12 school libraries/media centers• Atlanta History Center

Off Campus access to GALILEOhttp://clayton.libguides.com/offcampus

Symbols in GALILEO

Find Articles –Suggestions

• Academic Search Complete- multi-disciplinary, journals, magazines, newspapers

• LexisNexis Academic- local, regional, U.S. & international

• Newspaper Source (EBSCO) -regional papers• ProQuest Newspapers- regional papers• World News Digest- includes political, social,

and economic events since 1940.

For News Around the Worldtry World News Digest

Keyword Search politics AND United States

Key New Events- Select United States

Topics in History

Sample Search ex-felons AND voting

Using the Thesaurus Tool in Academic Search Complete

Search by title of an article

Journal article –The citationTitle of article

Author(s)

Journal, date, vol. issue pages

Browse for a LibGuide!

Browse by Subject or Major

Browse by topic:

Browse by specific course guide:

POLS 1101 LibGuidehttp://clayton.libguides.com/POLI1101

Quality of Selected Resources

• Evaluating Information is Essential!

• Establish validity, reliability, credibility, authorship, and integrity.• Authority• Who is the author, curator, publisher?

• Accuracy• How reliable is the information provided?

• Objectivity• What is the purpose of the resource?

• Currency• How up-to-date is the resource?

• Coverage• Does the resource contain information relevant to your topic?

Government Websites

http://www.usa.gov/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/

http://www.bls.gov/http://www.census.gov/

http://www.house.gov/

http://www.senate.gov/

https://www.cia.gov/index.html

http://www.fbi.gov/

http://www.ssa.gov

http://www.loc.gov/

http://fedstats.sites.usa.gov/

How to Avoid PlagiarismCite Your Sources!

• Plagiarism Tutorial-University of Southern Mississippi. Includes pre- and post-tests and quizzes to check your progress.

• Is it Plagiarism Yet?-Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) has tutorials, exercises, examples, and guides.

• You Quote It, You Note It! A funny 10 minute tutorial by the Vaughan Memorial Library of Acadia University.

LibGuides at Clayton State University

Resources for POLS 1101 Newspapers @ the Clayton State Library Political Science Statistical Resources for Your Assignments!

Tutorial Guides• Library Research• Library Services • Off Campus Access to Electronic Resources