• Starting Your Research  -- Search Statement
   
• Reference Sources (Print & Electronic)
  
  
• Full-text Articles (Print & Electronic Journals and Newspapers)  - see Off-Campus Access
  
  
• Online Catalogs (Books, Journal Holdings, Maps, DVDs, Software, Other materials)
  

• Interlibrary Loan (ILL)
  
  
• Scholarly Journals
  
  
• Evaluating Sources     
   
• In-Class Research on your topics
   
• Off-Campus Access
   

Start by writing a Search Statement and  identifying your search terms - See Example above. Break search terms down into narrower, synonymic and broader terms.  You will use these terms for searches in journal article databases.  Can you think of others?

- You will can expand your terminology in the process of doing research by looking at subject terms given to journal articles in the abstract/citation of the database records

- Note that your research might cover subject disciplines other than Economics.  When searching the journal databases, consider journal articles in fields  related to your topic  - psychology for example

• General

*Country Studies
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html 
This website contains the on-line versions of books previously published in hard copy by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress under the Country Studies/Area Handbook Program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Army.

CIA World Fact Book
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html 

AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive 
http://accuweather.ap.org/cgi-bin/aplaunch.pl 
Associate Press news stories archive  -- photos, sound files, charts

Perry Castaneda Library Map Collection
Online maps from the University of Texas which include regional and world maps and links to outline maps.

Europa World Year Book
Ref JN 1 .E85
Contains valuable information about international organizations as well as individual countries.  Data comes from the United Nations as well as many other international sources.

Encyclopedia of Population

Historical Statistics

International historical statistics : Africa, Asia & Oceania, 1750-1988
REF HA4675 .M55 1995

International Historical Statistics:   The America 1750-1988
REF HA 175 .m52

World Development Indicators
Query database contains over 550 time-series indicators for 208 countries and 18 country groups, covering 1960 to 2005, and offers mapping, charting and data export formats

LexisNexis Statistical
Statistical information available as indexed tables from federal, state, and international intergovernmental (IGO) publications.

U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/
Census Bureau Mission: "... to be the preeminent collector and provider of timely, relevant, and quality data about the people and economy of the United States."

 

• Economics

Encyclopedias and Directories

The American Economy: A Historical Encyclopedia
REF HC 102 .A66 2003

Business Statistics of the United States: Patterns of Economic Change
REF HC 101 .A131222 2007

Economic Report of the President
REF HC 106.5 .A272 2007

Encyclopedia of Global Economy
REF HF 1359 .O28 2006

Encyclopedia of World Poverty
REF HV 12 .E54 2006

Encyclopedia of World Trade
REF HF 1373 .W67 2005

Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History
REF HC 15 .O94 2003

World Development Indicators database
The WDI database contains over 550 time-series indicators for 226 countries and 18 country groups, covering 1960 to 2005, and offers mapping, charting and data export formats.

Lexis Nexis Statistical
http://www.lexis-nexis.com/statuniv
Statistical infromation available as indexed tables from federal, state and international intergovernmental (IGO) publications.

 

Look in the D- F, and statistical sources in the HD's sections of the Print Reference Collection for background information on your topics.

• General Article Databases
  All of the databases and indexes below may be reached from this page.  Also, information about accessing databases off-campus is available here.
  
  Academic Search Premier
  Excellent source for full text journals and scholarly articles

  Academic OneFile
  Includes abstracts or references for articles from more than 3,000 scholarly, trade and general-interest publications, as well as references for The New York Times.  Full-text coverage for 1900 titles. 
  
   

• Newspapers Databases  
  
  Wall Street Journal Current 
  
  Wall Street Journal Historical

  LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe
  The LEXIS-NEXIS Academic database offers full text coverage for news, business, legal and medical information.  International sources included from publications published in country of origin.

  New York Times Online (1851-2001) - excellent for primary surces
  Full-image articles for the New York Times from 1851-2001.  For full-text coverage (no images) of the New York Times after 2001, use New York Times Current (1980-present)

  ProQuest National Newspapers -- include current New York Times, Washington Post and more
   

• Economics
  
  EconLit
  
  Business Source Premier  -- very good source.  Includes in-depth Country Profiles
  
  CIAO: Columbia International Affairs Online

  JSTOR
  Full text archive of 115 scholarly journals.  Good coverage of Economics.

  Project Muse
  Approx. 200  full text journals published by Johns Hopkins University Press

• History
  
  America:  History & Life

Historical Abstracts
 

• Psychology
  
  PsycINFO
  
   
• Politics and Culture
  
  CIAO: Columbia International Affairs Online
  
  SocINDEX with Full Text 
  
   
• Google Scholar
  An academic search tool worth checking out is Google Scholar (not to be confused with Google). Like a periodical database, it indexes a range of journals. Google Scholar (GS) is unique though, for its coverage of conference proceedings, technical reports, books, government grey literature, dissertations, and self-published scholarly works. It also features a “cited by” function that links from a source to other sources referencing that source. This citation indexing is generally found only in a fee-based service like Web of Knowledge.

See the other Databases By Subject for other journals covering other subject disciplines

Saint Michael's College Online Catalog
http://voyager.smcvt.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First 

University of Vermont's Online Catalog
http://voyager.uvm.edu/

WorldCat 
http://firstsearch.oclc.org/dbname=WorldCat;done=referer;FSIP
Through OCLC FirstSearch. The world's most comprehensive bibliography, with 42 million bibliographic records representing 400 languages and covering information from 4,000 years of knowledge, and holdings information from the world's libraries.
*-you may ILL documents that SMC does not own electronically from this database

• Students may request materials (journal articles, books) not available in the SMC library through ILL.  It is important that ILL is done early in your research project as it may take from 10 to 14 days for the materials to be delivered to the SMC Library.

• Note:You may now take books out of the UVM Library using your SMC ID

You may start the ILL process by either:

1. ONLINE Form is available to submit electronically @
http://www2.smcvt.edu/library/services/ill/index.htm 

2. Most of our article databases allow ILL access directly from the database interface:
   - Ebscohost Databases
   - Religion Database
   - WorldCat
   - Catholic Periodical and Literature Index

Consider journal articles from Scholarly sources.  These sources are often the result of original research included references and bibliographies of sources consulted.  These journals are also often refereed or peer reviewed.  Consult with your professor or stop by the library.  More information @ http://academics.smcvt.edu/sburks/scholarly_journals.htm

You should evaluate all your sources (particularly the Internet) for 

• Authority
• Accuracy
• Objectivity / Advocacy
• Currency 
• Coverage

See http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html  for a thorough review of evaluating sources

Other Considerations:

- How often has the journal article been cited by other researchers?  Use Google Scholar to determine.this.

- Is the journal article published in a "prestigious" journal?  Is the journal a scholarly peer reviewed journal?

- What other works has the author published?

- What is the journal articles author's institutional relationship?  What does the organization advocate?

- Does the organization behind a website advocate certain positions?

- Review the cited list of sources used in the journal articles?  Are they quality sources?  Could they be valuable as sources for your research?

Advocacy  Organizations

Two good sources published by the Economics America, Inc for finding Advocacy Organizations are Located in the Library Reference Section: The Left Guide and The Right Guide REF HS 2321 .L44

For Example

• Left Leaning

Brookings Institute
http://www.brook.edu/default.htm

Economic Policy Institute (EPI)
http://epinet.org/

Center for Economic Conversion
http://www.conversion.org/

United For a Fair Economy
http://www.ufenet.org/

• Right Leaning

Employment Policies Institute
http://www.epionline.org/

Labor Policies Association
http://www.lpa.org/index.html

American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
http://www.aei.org/

- Write out a search statement on a topic you are considering for your senior thesis.  Start an analysis of your search statement by listing critical questions and conjectures on your topic.

Start by identifying your search terms in the statement above and break them down into narrower, synonymic and broader terms.  Add to the following list as you find new terms from your citation to use for searches in journal article databases

Search Terms

Find the following information you can use to research your topic

A. Get Two newspaper articles - one  from the Wall Street Journal and another of your choice

B. Get 5  journal articles - include three that are scholarly peer reviewed articles

C. Use the Business Source Database to get a Country Report/Profile

D. Get a Country Study on your country http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html 

E. Use the SMC Library catalog and WorldCat to find books

F. Evaluate your sources by the criteria listed above under Evaluating Sources

Good luck with your projects.  Let me or the other librarians know of any way we can assist you.  sburks@smcvt.edu   ext - 2354