Library Guides: POLI SCI 1: Find Academic Materials

Quick Guide (Evaluating Sources)

When you encounter any kind of source, consider:

Authority - Who is the author? What is their point of view?
Purpose - Why was the source created? Who is the intended audience?
Publication & format - Where was it published? In what medium?
Relevance - How is it relevant to your research? What is its scope?
Date of publication - When was it written? Has it been updated?
Documentation - Did they cite their sources? Who did they cite?

Supreme Court Opinions

Oyez Project This link opens in a new window
A searchable archive of all public sessions recorded in the Supreme Court or the United States.
A multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States and its work. Contains all audio recorded in the Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955, and summaries of major cases going back to the courts founding. The Project also provides biographical information on all justices and offers a virtual reality 'tour' of portions of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of some of the justices.

Landmark Supreme Court Cases
From the U.S. Courts, this page lists the major court decisions that have impacted lives around the country.
Supreme Court Cases
From the ACLU, a list of major cases going back to 1996.

Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic) This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive legal database. Find Supreme Court cases going back to the founding of the country.
Nexis Uni allows users to set up personal accounts to personalize your research experience. Nexis Uni has replaced LexiNexis Academic. [dates vary]

Article Databases

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Indexes books, journals, and dissertations within the field of political science and related to comparative politics, developing nations, history and theory of political science, political psychology, political economy, public administration, and public policy. [1975 - present]
International in scope.
PAIS International This link opens in a new window
Indexes books, journals, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, and web sources related to public policy, politics, economics, and social issues worldwide. (Public Affairs Information Service) [1915 - present]
Includes publications from over 120 countries. Some of the indexed materials are published in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The Archive covers English-language material only.
America: History and Life
Access to this resource will be discontinued effective 6/30/23 due to library budget cuts. Please use Google Scholar or BASE as alternatives. Includes all key English-language historical journals; selected historical journals from major countries, state, and local history journals; and a targeted selection of hundreds of journals in the social sciences and humanities.
Index of journals on the history of the US and Canada from prehistory to the present.
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new window
Access to this resource has been discontinued effective 6/30/24 due to library budget cuts.

Index of publications in the fields of economics, political science, sociology and anthropology from over 100 countries. [1981 - present]
More than 70 languages are represented, with 30% percent of records published in languages other than English.
ProQuest Social Sciences This link opens in a new window
Search social sciences indexes on the ProQuest platform.
An interdisciplinary metasearch through 22 of the the social sciences indexes on the ProQuest platform. Includes EconLit, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, PAIS, PsycInfo, Sociological Abstracts, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts and more.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
A multi-disciplinary database of scholarly and general interest journals, books, and reports. [1865 - present]
Articles from broad array of peer-reviewed journals, popular and trade magazines and news sources for nearly all areas of study; available in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese.

Find News

New York Times
NYT coverage 1980-present. Does not include images.

Access World News This link opens in a new window
Full-text information and perspectives from U.S. and international news sources. (America's newspapers - NewsBank - global newsbank)
Provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources. Offers strong regional coverage, indexing more than California newspapers such as Contra Costa Times (1995-current), Sacramento Bee (1984-current), San Francisco Chronicle (1985-current), and San Jose Mercury News (1985-current). Search categories include: California newspapers (121 titles), Greater Los Angeles (54 titles), major metropolitan titles (13 titles), Spanish-language news sources (48 titles), the World (almost 2000 titles), US (855 titles).
ProQuest Major Daily Newspapers (Historic & Current) This link opens in a new window
Access to national and regional newspapers from across the U.S.
Includes New York Times (full text, Historical, 1881-1985, with Index, 1851-1993 + 1980-current). Los Angeles Times (full text, Historical, 1881-2010 + 1985-current). Wall Street Journal (full text, Historical, 1889-1995 + 1984-current). Chicago Tribune (full text, Historical 1849-2010 + 1895- current). The Washington Post (full text, Historical, 1877-2002, 1987-current). Also indexes the New York Times Magazine (indexed from 1986-current, full text from 1997), the New York Times Book Review (indexed from 1986-current, full text from 1997), and the WSJ: the Wall Street Journal Magazine (full text from 2011-present).
Ethnic NewsWatch (ENWH) This link opens in a new window
Index of over 200 ethnic, minority, and native press publications, including news, culture, and history topics. Searchable in English and Spanish. (ENWALL) [1960 - present]
Also includes a retrospective backfile of titles (1960-1989).
Factiva This link opens in a new window
Text mining of this database is prohibited. Access limited to 49 simultaneous users Provides general and business news and information from more than 9,000 sources in 22 languages, including influential local, national and international newspapers, leading business magazines, trade publications, and news wires.
Includes the exclusive combination of The Wall Street Journal (1979-present), the Financial Times, Dow Jones and Reuters newswires and the Associated Press, as well as Reuters Fundamentals, and Bureau van Dijk company profiles.

Finding Article Databases

Search an article database to find citations (title, author, title of journal, date, page numbers) for articles on a particular topic. The Library gives you access to over 200 article databases covering different disciplines.

Think about which academic disciplines might write about your topic. Examples: literature, film, anthropology, history...
From the Library home page, click on "Find + borrow", select "Collections" from the dropdown menu, and choose the "Use Berkeley's electronic databases" box.
Select the appropriate academic disciplines and then look for "Recommended" databases.

Major Journals in American Politics

The listing below are the major academic journals in American Politics. The links below will take you to the journal page and you can search across each journal title by title. The better way to search across these titles and others is to use one of the databases found in the box to the left and select Scholarly or Academic or Peer Reviewed as one of your search options--the exact term will vary from database to database.

American Politics Research : 1973 - present

Journal of Women Politics and Policy : 2005 - present

Legislative Studies Quarterly : 1976 - present

Political Research Quarterly : 1948 - present

PS, Political Science & Politics : 1988 - present

Presidential Studies Quarterly : 1974 - present

Publius : 1971 - present

Social Science Quarterly : 1920 - present

Spectrum: The Journal of State Government : 1998 - 2005

State Politics and Policy Quarterly : 2002 - present

Women & Politics : 1980 - 2004