Research Guides: Political Science: Home

Databases

Communication Abstracts
Covers communication-related articles, reports, papers, and books from a variety of publishers, research institutions, and information sources.
Communication and Mass Media Complete
Extensive coverage of areas related to communication and mass media.
EBSCOhost Research Databases
Search across all of Morris Library's databases on the EBSCO platform. Millions of documents on hundreds of subjects in dozens of databases. See what's included. EBSCO is rolling out a new interface that you can test before its launch in early 2025.
Google Scholar
To connect to Morris Library's online resources via Google Scholar, follow these steps:
1. go to Google Scholar Settings
2. click on Library links on the left
3. search for Carbondale
4. check the checkbox next to the "Southern Illinois University Carbondale - Find Full Text @ Morris"
5. Hit save.
Now Find Full Text @ Morris links will appear on Google Scholar results allowing you to connect to library resources.
JSTOR
Provides access to more than 12 million journal articles, books, images, and primary sources in 75 disciplines.
Left Index
This bibliographic database covers the diverse literature of the left, with an emphasis on political, economic, social and cultural scholarship inside and outside academia.
Nexis Uni
Features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.
Opposing Viewpoints
Explores controversial topics by bringing together information needed to understand an issue: pro and con viewpoint articles, reference articles for context, full-text magazines, academic journals, newspapers, primary source documents, government and organizational statistics, and multimedia files and links.
Points of View Reference Center
Includes a series of controversial essays that present multiple sides of a current issue. Essays provide questions and materials for further thought and study and are accompanied by thousands of supporting articles from the world’s top political and societal publications.
Project Muse
Access to the full text of all Johns Hopkins University Press' scholarly journals covering such disciplines as psychology, classics, cinema, medicine, literature, history, and more.
PsycINFO
Contains more than 2.6 million citations and abstracts spanning 1806 to the present, selected from approximately 2,000 periodicals n the psychological, social, behavioral, and health sciences. Includes articles, books, chapters, and dissertations.
SocIndex with Full Text
Contains over 1,600,000 citations, abstracts for 640 core journals in the social sciences dating back to 1895. Indexes books, conference papers, and other sources and includes full text for 547 books and monographs, and full text for 6,711 conference papers.
Web of Science
Provides access to over 170 million citations in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Allows cited reference searches. Tutorials available at https://www.youtube.com/user/WoSTraining.

Search Morris Library's Catalog

Search for books, ebooks, journals, government documents, DVDs, CDs, and more.

Books

Gaming the Vote by William Poundstone
Call Number: LC Books: 5th Floor JK1976 .P68 2008
Publication Date: 2008
"At least five U.S. presidential elections have been won by the second most popular candidate, because of "spoilers"--Minor candidates who take enough votes away from the most popular candidate to tip the election. The spoiler effect is a consequence of the "impossibility theorem," discovered by Nobel laureate economist Kenneth Arrow, which asserts that voting is fundamentally unfair--and political strategists are exploiting the mathematical faults of the simple majority vote. This book presents a solution to the spoiler problem: a system called range voting, already widely used on the Internet, which is the fairest voting method of all, according to computer studies."
50 Politics Classics: Freedom Equality Power by Tom Butler-Bowdon
Call Number: E-Book
Publication Date: 2015
"From Abraham Lincoln to Nelson Mandela, and from Aristotle to George Orwell, 50 Politics Classics distills the essence of the books, pamphlets, and speeches of the major leaders and great thinkers that drive real-world change."

Nonfiction Book Collection
This database contains informative abstracts and searchable full text for more than 4,100 popular nonfiction books on core subject areas, as well as information on careers, health, sports, adventure, technology, life skills and more

Can't find it at Morris?

Request items from around the world through Interlibrary Loan. Check and request books from I-Share first before requesting books through this service.

Interlibrary Loan
Request books that you can't find at Morris Library or through I-Share. Articles are usually delivered to your @siu email; books are delivered to the first floor circulation desk at Morris Library.
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WorldCat
Worldwide union catalog created and maintained collectively by more than 9,000 member institutions. If you find a resource in WorldCat, check in the library catalog to see if Morris Library or an I-Share library own a copy. If not, try Interlibrary Loan.

Citation Resources

APSA Style Manual for Political Science
.pdf format. The American Political Science Association uses a variation of the Chicago Manual of Style citation system. It concentrates on formats important to political science, with special attention given to documents produced within the United States government. It provides a pragmatic and simple way to reference publications in a variety of formats.
Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition (Purdue OWL)
Citation Resources
There are several online citation generators available that will help you format citation or your works cited page into APA, MLA, Chicago or other citation style. Morris Library offers assistance for two tools: EndNote Web, which it gets through a library subscription and Zotero, which is a free download
EndNote Desktop Guide, Morris Library
EndNote Desktop is available to current SIU Carbondale and SIU School of Medicine graduate students and faculty, including SIU School of Law students. EndNote Online is available to SIU Carbondale undergraduate students and staff. Questions about School of Medicine use may be directed to reference@siumed.edu.
Zotero Guide, Morris Library
Zotero is a free bibliographic management tools that allows you to save citation fields and generate citations for your bibliography. Zotero is a FireFox plug-in available on most library computers.
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Newspapers

Below you will find a few recommended databases that can act as a starting point in your research. The top resource is a link to another LibGuide that collected all the newspapers freely available to students and faculty at SIU from a range of publication dates including ones being published currently.

Newspapers: Free Access for SIUC
A resource guide for newspapers that are available from the Morris Library.

Ethnic Diversity Source
Combined search of Ethnic Diversity Source and Diversity & Ethnic Studies ebooks. Supports the study of African Americans, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, European Americans, Jewish Americans, Latinx Americans, Multiracial Americans, and Native Americans, among others, with respect to their cultures, traditions, social treatment, and lived experiences. Scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, historical documents, and biographies are complemented by primary sources, such as speeches and interviews. Also includes videos and over 6500 ebooks.
Global Newsstream
Search the most recent global news, as well as archives which stretch back into the 1980s featuring content from newspapers, newswires, and news sites from the U.S., Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Australia.
NewsBank
Full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources.
Newspaper Source Plus and Regional Business News
Includes more than 860 full-text newspapers, including USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, The Times (London), The Toronto Star, etc. Also contains selected full text for more than 200 regional (U.S.) newspapers. as well as television and radio news transcripts.
Nexis Uni
Features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790.
Regional Business News
More than 80 regional business publications covering all metropolitan and rural areas within the U.S.
U.S. Major Dailies
Provides access to the five most respected U.S. national and regional newspapers: The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune. Content is available by 8am each day and archives reach as far back as 1985.

AllSides
Gathers news articles from over 1,400 sources and uses language analysis to sort them by political bias. Similar to Ground News, but the full feature set is free.

Data and Statistics

CDC Wonder
"WONDER online databases utilize a rich ad-hoc query system for the analysis of public health data. Reports and other query systems are also available."
Data.gov
Contains datasets from across U.S. government agencies.
DataUSA
DataUSA collects publicly available data from different governmental or trusted sources and puts them all into one source.
Explore Census Data, U.S. Census Bureau
"data.census.gov is the new platform to access data and digital content from the U.S. Census Bureau."
FiveThirtyEight: Polls
Political polling collected and displayed by FiveThirtyEight.
Historical Statistics of the United States
Offered by Cambridge Press, this online resource collects data from the US Census Bureau dating back to the 1700s. The website has five sections ranging from data on population to economics and workforce.
Illinois Report Card Data Library
This website contains annual reports from 1996 that track educational performance, student population, and more at public K-12 schools in the state of Illinois. Information is readable in Excel documents with an additional document containing a glossary of terms.
National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education
The NCES collects and analyzes data on all aspects of education and schools and makes it available in full-text on their website. The Nation’s Report Card is also available, as is a school, college, and library locator.
Open Data UK
Data collected by the UK government, "find data published by central government, local authorities and public bodies to help you build products and services."
Open Government Canada
Data collected by the Canadian government.
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.
SAMHSA Data
"The Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality (CBHSQ) is the leading source of behavioral health data in the United States." This data is collected as part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) by the US government.
Statistics Canada
"Statistics Canada is the national statistical office. The agency ensures Canadians have the key information on Canada's economy, society and environment that they require to function effectively as citizens and decision makers."
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
The mission of the Bureau of Justice Statistics is to collect, analyze, publish and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government. Great site for a variety of statistics.
USAFacts
"USAFacts is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan civic initiative making government data easy for all Americans to access and understand. We provide accessible analysis on US spending and outcomes in order to ground public debates in facts."

ICPSR: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Science Research
Data archive of more than 500,000 files of research in the social sciences. Hosts 16 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.
Roper iPoll
Collects public opinion data from polls conducted by major U.S. and international polling organizations such as CBS, ABC, the Associated Press, Gallup, Harris, Pew, and major academic and commercial pollsters. Polls cover a variety of topics, including social issues, politics, pop culture, international affairs, science, the environment, and many more.

Illinois State Government

Ballotpedia Illinois
Ballotpedia is a non-profit organization whose professional editors create plan language breakdowns of politics at both the state and federal levels. The site is best known for explaining ballot initiatives and providing breakdowns of election ballots to aid voters during elections. This link directs to their page on Illinois.
Data and Statistics, Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH)
"Data.Illinois.gov is an open data portal that provides ready access to public datasets."
DataUSA Illinois
ataUSA collects publicly available data from different governmental or trusted sources and puts them all into one source. This particular page links directly to their data on Illinois.
Electronic Documents of Illinois (EDI)
The Electronic Documents of Illinois provides permanent public access to official publications of the State of Illinois which have been deposited in electronic form.
Illinois General Assembly
Includes Senate and House floor debate transcripts from 1971-present, along with information on legislation from this session and past sessions.
Illinois State Agencies
Provides easy access to Illinois agencies, boards and commissions.
Illinois State Board of Elections
Provides information about elections in Illinois in an easy-to-find, easy-to-understand format. A great deal of information in the site is up-to-the-minute, available immediately, as it happens.

Federal Government

Congressional Directory
Offers short biographies for members of the House and Senate. Also contains information about other Federal departments & agencies, court officials, military, governors of states & territories, foreign diplomats, and members of the press.

Congressional Hearings, 1824 - present
Published and unpublished hearings held by the U.S. Congress.
ProQuest Congressional
Indexes congressional hearings, prints, bills, historical publications, (1789-1969) and unpublished hearings (1823-1972). Full text of congressional bills and resolutions (from 1989), reports and documents, biographical and voting information for members of Congress, the Federal Register (from 1980), the Congressional Record (from 1985), and the National Journal (from 1977).

American Presidency Project
An outstanding collection of resources related to the American presidency, including all Public Papers of the Presidents on-line for free. Also includes audio and video of famous presidential speeches, from the 19th century to the present.
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An outstanding collection of resources related to the American presidency, including all Public Papers of the Presidents on-line for free. Also includes audio and video of famous presidential speeches, from the 19th century to the present.
Ballotpedia
Ballotpedia is a non-profit organization whose professional editors create plan language breakdowns of politics at both the state and federal levels. The site is best known for explaining ballot initiatives and providing breakdowns of election ballots to aid voters during elections.
GovTrack.us
GovTrack provides free research, tracking, and analytics on the daily activities of the United States Congress. Help us continue tracking Congress.
Oyez
"The Oyez Project is a multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States and its work. It aims to be a complete and authoritative source for all audio recorded in the Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955." "The Oyez Project remains true to its initial objective: to make the work of the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone through text, images, audio, and video."
State, Local, and Tribal Governments, USA.gov
Contact information for state, local, and tribal governments.
State and Local Business, Finance, and Government Resources
A frequently updated directory of links to government sponsored and controlled resources on the internet.
United States Government Manual (1935-Present)
"As the official handbook of the Federal Government, The United States Government Manual provides information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches. It also includes information on quasi-official agencies; international organizations in which the United States participates; and boards, commissions, and committees. The Manual begins with reprints of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution."

Dissertations and Theses

For in-depth arguments (often) not yet published, try these databases of dissertations and theses.

Morris Library Catalog
Searchable catalog of print and electronic materials accessible through Morris Library. Includes books, journals, eBooks, government documents, DVDs, CDs, and more.
Dissertations and Theses @ Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Contains Ph.D. dissertations and Master's theses produced by SIUC students. Full text PDFs are included when available. Note: records include an option to buy a print or microform copy of a dissertation or thesis, but Morris Library can loan its print copies of dissertations and theses for free.
Dissertations and Theses Global
Includes dissertations and theses from around the world, offering millions of works from thousands of universities. Full-text coverage spans from 1743 to the present, with citation coverage dating back to 1637.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)
Includes more than one million electronic theses and dissertations from across the globe. Faceted searches available by language, continent, country, date, format, and source institution. Not all theses and dissertations included are open-access.
Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD)
Indexes over 1.8 million theses and dissertations from more than 800 colleges, universities, and research institutions
Research Papers from SIUC
Primarily papers written after 2008. Search the library catalog for older papers.