Research Guides: Political Science: Home

Best Bets to Start Your Research

Start your research with these databases or explore the guide for more in-depth information. Contact your librarian (right) with any questions or for a personalized introduction to the library!

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window
1975 - present. Indexes journal in political sciences and related fields including, international relations, public policy & administration, economic & environmental policy, politics and society and more.
SLUth - Search Plus This link opens in a new window
Use this "mega" database to search JSTOR, Political Affairs index, Academic Search Complete, America: History & Life, Web of Science & more! While not specific to Political Science it can be a good place to go when you're not sure where to start or if you're not finding what you need in other databases.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Formerly LexisNexis Academic, Nexis Uni provides access to full-text of local, national, and international news sources; legal sources (court cases, statutes, legislation) for both state and federal levels.
ICPSR This link opens in a new window
Repository of social science data sets for research and instruction. Disciplines represented include political science, sociology, economics, history, education, gerontology, criminal justice, public health, foreign policy, and law. To access all datasets, SLU users will need to create an ICPSR username & password to show institutional affiliation. Select datasets are free to all users.
POLITICO Pro This link opens in a new window
POLITICO Pro offers granular reporting and analysis across 16 policy coverage areas along with tools, trackers, and data to provide key policy intelligence.

CRS Reports
The Congressional Research Service is a nonpartisan agency that produces research reports and briefs on major policy issues and any topic requested by a member of Congress. This official site is publicly available and includes recent reports. SLU database ProQuest Congressional includes historical reports going back to 1914.

Managing Your Citations

Before you start your research choose a citation manager that works best for you! It will help you keep citations to all your articles, sources and data in one place making things much easier when it's time to write your papers. EndNote Desktop software is available for free through ITS, and the more streamlined EndNote Basic is available for free on the web.

EndNote Online
Considering EndNote but not ready for the time commitment of setting up & learning a new software? This free online resource allows you to easily save citations from a variety of databases and link back to the full-text. You can also use the cite while you write feature and import your citations into the EndNote software if you decide you need a more powerful citation manager.
EndNote download
Download EndNote for Mac or Windows from SLU ITS - free for SLU affiliates. This desktop software includes more advanced features than the free web version.
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To learn about EndNote, go to EndNote tips, by Donghua Tao, Ph.D.
Zotero
A free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your sources. Browser plug-ins make this tool especially useful if you research includes a lot of government reports and other materials available on the open web. Can also import citations from library databases.
Citation Management Comparison Chart
This you might want to try a tool other than EndNote? This chart from UCSD compares features in EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero.

Government Search Engines

Google is great, but it includes EVERYTHING. Try the search engines below to search only for government information.

Search USA.gov
Search USA.gov searches .gov, .mil, .us and selected other domains that include official local, regional, state and federal government agencies as well as quasi governmental agencies such as the Smithsonian.
Intergovernmental Organization Search Engine
If you're looking for international information, this custom Google search engine searches across 100s of IGO websites. IGOs searched included in this search are: World Bank, United Nations, Arab Monetary Fund, African Development Bank Group, IMF, Organization of American States, World Trade Organization, European Union, World Tourism Organization and many more.

Interlibrary Loan

Remember: Never pay online to access an article!

If SLU doesn't already subscribe to a journal, you can request articles for free through Interlibrary Loan's Illiad service. If you have questions about Interlibrary Loan (ILL) or using Illiad please contact our chat service or your librarian.