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POL2 307: Women and Development

The following resources should be helpful for POL2 307. Also consult the resources on the main Political Science subject page. Feel free to contact me for help, Betty Febo (efebo), x3426.

Contents:

New!

Student Library Research Award

  • One $300 awards for a paper or project of any length from a 100 or 200 level Wellesley College course
  • One $300 award for a paper or project from any level done by a First year
  • One $750 award for a paper or project of any length from a 300 level Wellesley College course, excluding 360s, and 370s

Deadline Spring 2009 and Fall 2009 papers: March 1, 2010

Offcampus Access · Databases A-Z · Research Guides by Subject | by Course · Reference Books Online · Library Catalog

These are only some of the sources that may be useful to you. Please contact me for help with any of your research, Betty Febo (efebo), x3426.

Reference Sources for Background Information

Finding Books

Wellesley College Catalog - Use the Library catalog to find books and other materials (journal titles, NOT journal articles) we have here at Wellesley. Remember to start with "keyword" if you are beginning to research a topic, then when you find a useful title, see what its subject headings are. Then click on these subject headings to find more about your topic.

Another option: Once you have found a useful record in the catalog, click on the call number and then view the "extended display". This is as if you are looking at the books on the shelf.

A basic book on a country may be useful as an introduction. In our catalog, under title, look for [country name] a country study, or look for them online from the Library of Congress, or use Portals to the World..

Try the following subject headings and their subheadings:

WorldCat - Use WorldCat to find books and other materials not at Wellesley. Use the suggestions listed above. If you find a book you want that Wellesley does not own, use the ILL link within WorldCat to request the book.

Finding Articles

The following databases provide either full-text articles or citations (information about when and where the article was published). Once you have a citation for an article, use the Find It! @ Wellesleylink from each citation to search one or more electronic journal sources through the Wellesley College Library Catalog. Use the name of the journal as the title and make sure you look at the dates covered carefully! If Wellesley does not own the article, you can request it via Interlibrary Loan (ILL). See our A-Z list for additional databases; think of which database will have the information for the approach you want.

Look for ways to limit your search (by date, by subject headings, to scholarly or peer-reviewed sources).

Use Ulrich's Periodicals Directory to determine if a particular journal is scholarly or to to find out where to search for articles in a particular journal. In Ulrich's, search for the journal, look at the record, and click on the Indexing/Abstracting tab. Match the indexing/abstracting sources listed with the databases on our A-Z list. Then go to that database that indexes/abstracts your journal and put the journal title in the search box as a source along with your topic keywords.

Suggested databases for this class (listed in order of usefulness):

PAIS - articles about political, social & economic issues, public affairs from 1915+. Index and abstracts only.

CIAO [Columbia International Affairs Online] - theory and research in international affairs from 1991 onward. Includes working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, proceedings from conferences, books, journals and policy briefs. Note: using the advanced search feature will yield much better results. Note: working papers and policy papers are full text. Books and journal articles are selected full text. Search for the book or journal title in our catalog to see if we have access to the full text. Otherwise, use Interlibrary Loan.

GenderWatch - is a full text database of unique and diverse publications (1970+) that focus on how gender impacts a broad spectrum of subject areas.Publications include scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books, and NGO, government and special reports.

Women's Studies International - Indexes journal articles and books on women's studies, feminism, and gender studies, 1972 to present.

EconLit with Full Text - Index of articles, books, and working papers on economics, 1969 to present, with full text for 400 journals ยท

Academic Search Complete and Expanded Academic ASAP - great starting points for scholarly & popular articles in every discipline from 1990+. Selected full text.

Periodical Contents Index (PCI) - index to articles published in 4,698 periodicals in the humanities & social sciences in 40 languages. Full text available to over 200 journals. Best for earlier articles.

Web of Science (and Social Science) - 1965+. Interdisciplinary subject searching of scholarly articles in the social, physical, and life sciences. Search for articles that cite known journal articles or books.

Science Direct - Full text of more than 100 journals in the physical, life, cognitive, and social sciences, 1995 to present, and indexing of 1000+ journals often back to the first issue

ArticleFirst - an index to articles in all scholarly fields and popular culture from 1990+. Selected full text. This database is updated daily , so is useful for very current articles.

Alt-Press Watch - Full-text collection of newspapers, magazines and journals of the alternative and independent press from 1995-present. This isn't the most scholarly source, but it is full text and can give you some leads.

Historical Abstracts - articles on world history since 1450, excluding US & Canada, 1954+.

Finding News

LexisNexis Academic News - Domestic and international news, in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. For news sources outside the United States, choose "World News" and then the specific world area. Articles from the 1990s onward.

Westlaw Campus Research - very similar to LexisNexis Academic, but can include unique titles.

Press Display - Archived issues of over 200 newspapers from over 55 countries in their original format from the past 45 days.

Government Information

The Wellesley College Library receives many publications from the federal government as well as the United Nations and other inter-governmental organizations. They are all listed in the library catalog.

We also have a full set of United Nations documents in microfiche. Use Access UN (1945 onward) or the UN's documents system to find these United Nations documents.

Key Scholarly Web Sites

NOTE: Use the following criteria to evaluate any websites:

  • Who is the author of the information?
  • Can you find information about the author? What are his/her credentials?
  • How current is the information? Is there a "last updated" date?
  • Who is the intended audience for the information?
  • Is the content objective or is it coming from a certain viewpoint?
  • Is the information advocating a cause?

The following Web sites are international in scope and general in coverage.

Directories of Women's Organizations [UW Madison libraries]

Fourth World Conference on Women and the UN Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action

UN Millenium Development Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

Development

Women and Work

Women and Politics

For more information on how to evaluate web pages or for specific search engines see our search the web page.

Statistics

Some Searching Strategies

  • Don't forget to look at the references and footnotes in any useful book or article
  • Watch for names of individual researchers or NGOs or other groups, meetings, conferences, etc. found in your research material. Try using Google to search for those names; put phrases in quotes. Search for researcher names as authors.
  • If you keep coming up with nothing, make sure you have spelled words correctly. Think of synonyms or other terminology to use as search terms.
  • Make sure you know the date of the information you find, especially if it is from a Web site.
  • For very current information from specific countries (laws, policies, etc.), go to the country's Web site. Use the Foreign Governments links from Northwestern University Library] to try to figure out the specific government agency you want. Note that the information might not be in English.
  • If you don't have success searching Wellesley's databases, try using Google Scholar. Google Scholar searches the scholarly literature and even lists citing articles. Google Scholar now links to Wellesley-owned full text articles or books.
  • Contact me for help! Don't spend hours searching and get frustrated!

Citing your information

We have copies of various citation style guides on the Clapp reference desk or go to our online sources. Remember: if you find the full text online, whether an article in a database or info on the Web, you must cite the information from the online source. In a Wellesley database, look for a link to how to cite. Traditional citation style manuals will also include how to cite information found electronically.


Research Resources for Economics - look at the Working Papers section.

Research Resources for Peace and Justice

Government Documents

Return to Resources by Subject: Political Science

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Wellesley College Library . WCIS . Betty Febo . last modified: October 26, 2009