POLI SCI 999: UCDC American Presidency

Google Books

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 18:27:22 -0800

Google Books contains millions of scanned books, from libraries and publishers worldwide. You can search the entire text of the books, view previews or "snippets" from books that are still in copyright, and read the full text of out-of-copyright (pre-1923) books. Want to read the entire text of an in-copyright book? Use Google Books' Find in a Library link to locate the book in a UC Berkeley library, or search OskiCat to see if UC Berkeley owns the book.

Why use Google Books?

Library catalogs (like OskiCat) don't search inside books; using a library catalog, you can search only information about the book (title, author, Library of Congress subject headings, etc.). Google Books will let you search inside books, which can be very useful for hard-to-find information. Try it now:

Find eBooks

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:30:36 -0700

Since you are away from your library, electronic books become even more convenient for your research. All campuses purchase ebooks, and there are various ways you can find them, but these differ by campus.

A basic approach is to use your library's catalog. Limit your search results to online resources-- this usually requires an advanced search. Here's an example, using the Santa Barbara catalog [quick video]

You can also use Melvyl and limit the results to your own campus.

Find books in DC

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:20:37 -0700

How can you get books in Washington DC? Not from your campus library, sorry to say.

But you do have access to academic and professional libraries in DC:

Collections at your internship can be helpful

The Library of Congress is open to you. It's very big and has a lot, but you have to go there to use materials-- Library of Congress basic facts.

You can read [not borrow] books from academic libraries in the DC area, including Howard University, American University, Georgetown University and George Washington University.

To find books in these and other DC libraries, use Melvyl. How-to video

Proxy and VPN set up

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 10:28:46 -0800

To use library databases from DC you have to set up your campus proxy server or VPN. Once you do so, you'll be able to get articles from the databases in pdf form after logging with your campus ID.

Click your campus name below for set-up instructions:

B.E.A.M.

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:36:28 -0800

What sort of articles and data do you need to find for your paper? Scholarly, for sure, but there are many others:

news
laws and statutes
statistics
interviews
'primary sources'

It's helpful when doing your research to think about how you will use what you find. The acronym BEAM helps you make sure you find materials that will do the job you need in your paper. Research papers need materials in all four categories.

B = Background information. Do you know the seminal works, major scholars and theories in your topical area? What about the actual definitions of the disciplinary jargon you're using? Scholarly encyclopedias are the best source of background information: look in Oskicat under your discipline, with the word encyclopedias, [sociology encyclopedias]. Could also use Wikipedia, a textbook, a newspaper, or any source that fills you in on your big topic.

E = Evidence Often called primary sources, evidence is the stuff you are studying in your research. Evidence could be news coverage, laws, court cases, personal interviews, statistics or data... whatever helps you prove your thesis.

A = Analysis Here are the secondary sources-- analysis is usually written by faculty scholars or technical experts, who are themselves analyzing evidence that they may include or cite. As a student writing a paper, you are doing analysis, so it's important to refer to the work of others studying the same topic

M = Methodology This means the methods and questions you will use to analyze your evidence. Each discipline has its own favorite ways of asking questions and its own ideas about what sort of information can serve as evidence. You must know which methods are suitable to the disciplines you are working within. To find methodology, search for books by using the name of the discipline and the word methodology. E.g. Sociology method*.

[Bizup, Joseph. "BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing." Rhetoric Review Vol. 27, Iss. 1, 2008]

Political Science Databases

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 10:38:45 -0700

Use these databases as a starting point in political science research.

Google Scholar

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:23:08 -0700

Google Scholar is an easy way to do interdisciplinary research, and with some settings changes can become even more useful. You need a Google account to use these features.

Set up a Google Scholar Alert to be automatically notified when new articles are added to Google on topics of interest:

Do your search in Google Scholar. Look in the green toolbar for the envelope icon, and click it. New items will be sent to your email account as they are found by Google.

Make Google display links to full text of articles that Berkeley subscribes to:

Open Scholar. Click on the gear icon in the upper right corner, and choose 'scholar preferences'. In the new window, scroll down to 'Library Links', type the word Berkeley. Choose University of California, Berkeley-- UC eLinks, and Open Worldcat Search.

Ever wanted to trace an article’s impact? Google now permits searching within citing articles.

Do a Google Scholar search. Click on the "Cited by" link under a citation and select the "Search within articles citing..." checkbox.

UC-eLinks

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:43:59 -0800

Once you've searched a database to find articles, you may need to use to link to a PDF or html file if the full text is not immediately available.

Social Sciences Databases

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:02:04 -0800

Political Analysis

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 13:09:12 -0800

The following selected journals from both sides of the aisle are good sources for possible topics/research questions.

The New Republic Centrist news and analysis.
The National Review Right leaning news and analysis.
The Weekly Standard Right leaning news and analysis.
The Nation Left leaning news and analysis.
The Economist Centrist news and analysis
The American Prospect Left leaning analysis

Melvyl has articles

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:44:00 -0700

Melvyl has become a good place to start your search for scholarly articles because it displays the contents of some article databases. While it does not include as many articles as the databases like Academic Search Complete or JSTOR, it is easy to use, because it is a one-stop search.

Within Melvyl you can turn on or turn off specific databases if you find the results aren't relevant.

Office of the President

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:37:36 -0700

U.S. Congress

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:39:31 -0700

Supreme Court

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 15:41:39 -0700

Agency and Other Sources

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 10:41:59 -0700

News Resources

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:54:02 -0800

Here are some general news and newsmedia databases. For a full listing of the Library's news resources, check this list.

Polls and Public Opinion

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 12:57:17 -0700

The following resources will provide information on polls and public opinion across the United States.

Citation Management Tools

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:09:38 -0700

Citation management tools help you manage your research, collect and cite sources, and create bibliographies in a variety of citation styles. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, but any are easier than doing it by hand!

Zotero: A free plug-in that works exclusively with the Firefox browser: keeps copies of what you find on the web, permits tagging, notation, full text searching of your library of resources, works with Word, and has a free web backup service.
RefWorks - free for UC Berkeley users. It allows you to create your own database by importing references and using them for footnotes and bibliographies. Use the RefWorks New User Form to sign up.
EndNote: may be purchased from UC Berkeley's Software Central.

It's always good to double check the formatting -- sometimes the software doesn't get it quite right.

Google Search Tips, Tricks and Hacks

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:59:45 -0700

One of the largest hurdles of using Google is the amount you must weed through. Some searches result in thousands of pages; who has time to go through all that? You dont need to. Did you know you can manipulate a regular Google search with a couple hacks to your search. Its true! Try these search "tricks" during your next google search.

site:XXXXX This search tells google to limit your search to a particular site or domain. For instance, if you limit to site:berkeley.edu you would only search the Berkeley site. Similarly site:.gov would search only sites ending in .gov, and site:.edu would search only sites ending in .edu.

-XXXXX Adding a minus/hyphen sign "-" to a term will remove results with that term. This can be very helpfull when removing common words associated with your topic.

filetype:XXXX Using filetype: will only find certain file extentions (.doc, .pdf, .xcl, etc)

"XXX XXXX" Putting double quotes around a phrase will find only that phrase.

You can also combine some of these search hacks, such as adding -site:nytimes.com to remove results from the New York Times website. More search tricks can be found here.

Zotero Tips

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:04:46 -0700

If you've never used Zotero before, use the QuickStart Guide to get started.

Change your preferences if you want Zotero to

set your default citation style
search the full text of pdfs you save
Automatically attach associated PDFs and other files when saving items

To use Zotero to find specific articles in our library's databases, set up the Open URL resolver with this link: http://ucelinks.cdlib.org:8888/sfx_local?

An in-depth discussion of the relative virtues of Endnote and Zotero,

Google Scholar

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 09:14:05 -0700

Google Scholar is an easy way to do interdisciplinary research, and with some settings changes can become even more useful. You need a Google account to use these features.

Set up a Google Scholar Alert to be automatically notified when new articles are added to Google on topics of interest:

Do your search in Google Scholar. Look in the green toolbar for the envelope icon, and click it. New items will be sent to your email account as they are found by Google.

Make Google display links to full text of articles that Berkeley subscribes to:

Open Scholar. Click on scholar preferences [next to the search box]. Under Library Links, enter the word Berkeley. Choose up to three database providers we subscribe to: Full Text@IngentaConnect; UC eLinks; and Read article via OCLC.

Ever wanted to trace an article’s impact? Google now permits searching within citing articles.

Do a Google Scholar search. Click on the "Cited by" link under a citation and select the "Search within articles citing..." checkbox.