Guides to the Literature

Titles are listed here by call number

How to Research Congress. Ref. JK1108 .M349 1996
How to Research the Supreme Court. Ref. KF8741.A1 M36 1992
How to Research the Presidency. Ref. Z1249.P7 M365 1996
How to Research Elections. Ref. Z7164.R4 M37 2000
Provide basic information on sources and a bibliography of readings on the topics represented.

A Research Guide to Congress: How To Make Congress Work for You.
Provides useful information linking the legislative process to government publications reporting on each step.
Ref. KF4950 .M36 1991

Reader's Guide to American History.
Presents a series of brief essays that describe and evaluate significant literature on over 600 topics. Be sure to use the general index.
Ref. [q.] Z1236 .R43 1997

The American Historical Association's Guide to Historical Literature. 2 vols.
A selective guide to the literature. See the subject index in volume two.
Ref. [q.] Z6201 .A55 1995

Tapping the Government Grapevine: The User Friendly Guide to U.S. Government Information Sources.
Brief information on many kinds of government publications, including historical publications.
Ref. [q.] ZA5055.U6 R63 1998

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Encyclopedias and Dictionaries

The New Dictionary of the History of Ideas; Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas. 6 vols.
Ref. [q.] CB9 .N49 2005

A Companion to American Thought.
Ref. E169.1 .C685 1995

Dictionary of American History.     10 vols.
Ref. [q.] E174 .D52 2003

The Presidents: A Reference History.
Ref. [q.] E176.1 .P918 1996

Encyclopedia Of Presidential Campaigns, Slogans, Issues, and Platforms.
Ref. [q.] E176.1 .R6 2004

The Reader's Companion to the American Presidency.
Ref. [q.] E176.1 .R295 2000

The Encyclopedia of American Political History.
Ref. [q.] E183 .E48 2001

Encyclopedia of American Political History: Studies of the Principal Movements and Ideas. 3 vols.
Ref. [q.] E183 .E5 1984

Encyclopedia of Minorities in American Politics. 2 vols.
Ref. [q.] E184.A1 E574 2000

Encyclopedia of American Social History.     3 vols.
Ref. HN57 .E58 1993

Encyclopedia of Women in American Politics.
Ref. [q.] HQ1236.5.U6 E53 1999

A Historical Guide to the U.S. Government.
Ref. JK9 .H57 1998

Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections. 2 vols.
Ref. [q.] JK1967 .C662 2001

National Party Conventions, 1831-2004.
Ref. [q.] JK2255 .N373 2005

Historical Dictionary of United States Political Parties.
Ref. JK2261 .B345 2000

Verbis Non Factis: Words Meant To Influence Political Choices in the United States, 1800-1980.
Ref. JK2261 .B618 1984

Political Parties and Elections in the United States: An Encyclopedia. 2 vols.
Ref. JK2261 .P633 1991

This is only an extremely brief list of the most general sources. To find more, try a Subject Keyword search in LUCIA using terms that apply to your topic combined with (dictionaries or encyclopedias), for example, history and (dictionaries or encyclopedias). The information below on Finding Books will help you.

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Finding Books

To find items owned by the library, search LUCIA. Try Title begins with, Author, Subject begins with or Keyword Anywhere searching.

Title begins with
These searches will let you see if we own an item whose title you already know. This search works for titles of books, titles of scores, titles of movies, titles of journals (but not individual journal articles) and more.

Author
Use this search to find works created by the person named. Be sure to enter the last name first. Author searches work for individual writers, composers, directors, and for groups or entities like organizations or government agencies.

Subject begins with
Try a Subject begins with search for an idea or concept like United States politics and government or United States history. LUCIA will list other subject headings (and subheadings) which may be of interest. For advanced research you should consult the Library of Congress Subject Headings, or LCSH, a guide to the terms commonly used in catalogs like ours. The LCSH can be found on top of the Ready Reference shelves behind the reference desk on the first floor of the library.

Keyword Anywhere
In this type of search, LUCIA will look for the terms you specify anywhere in the important areas of the cataloging records, and display a list of those records. Try a search for a phrase using quotation marks, as in "American political development". You can perform Boolean searches in LUCIA like class and consumer*. In this search, LUCIA will look for all records containing the word class. The asterisk acts as a truncation symbol and tells LUCIA to search all its records for all words starting with consumer: consumer, consumerism, consumers, etc. Then LUCIA returns a list of all the records that contain the word class and all forms of the word consumer. You might want to try searching for some of the terms you find in the LCSH, or try targeting your keyword search by telling LUCIA to look for the terms in the subject area of the records, by using the Subject Keyword option. For example, compare a Keyword Anywhere search with a Subject Keyword search for united states and insurance.

Books are arranged on the library's shelves by Library of Congress Classification. This is a system which organizes materials by general subjects. Once you have a call number from searching LUCIA, see this guide to call number locations at Mudd and the library floor maps to find out where a book might be on the shelves.

Search LUCIA for materials in our library; try WorldCat to find materials beyond the Mudd. Make sure you've thoroughly searched our library before going to WorldCat. Materials not owned by the Mudd library or the Appleton Public Library can be requested through Interlibrary Loan. See a reference librarian if you need help.

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Biographical Information

The sources listed here are in alphabetical order by title, as both paper and electronic sources will be helpful. These will be useful for finding out about historians and other authors of secondary materials as well as historical figures. Be alert when searching non-western names or names of rulers, as you may need to use varying forms of these names.

American National Biography. 1999. 24 vols.
The major national biography covering persons important in the history of the United States.
Ref. CT213 .A68 1999

Biography and Genealogy Master Index.
An electronic version of the printed index, containing citations to useful information in standard biographical sources. It is a great place to begin searching for biographical information about anyone.

Contemporary Authors. Available through the Literature Resource Center
Provides personal data, career highlights, lists of writings, and works in progress on contemporary authors. The individuals included range from newspaper and television reporters to editors and columnists to novelists and screenwriters.

Who's Who on the Web
An online version of Who's Who in America as well as several other versions, including Who’s Who in American Education and Who’s Who in the World. Be sure to click the Log Off button when you finish with this resource.

To find biographical books about a certain person, search in LUCIA for the person using the Subject begins with option, with the last name first for standard western names. Browse through the subject headings to find the subheading which corresponds to your specific interests. Again, be alert when searching non-western names or names of rulers, as you may need to use varying forms of these names. Many times, LUCIA has cross-references for these.

For autobiographical books by and about a certain person, search in LUCIA for person as Author. Be sure to consult the library's guide on Biographical Information for further ideas and information.

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Government Documents

Most United States Government Documents are not cataloged in LUCIA. There are several ways to search for government documents, but the two listed below will be the most direct. You might also want to take a look at the library's Guide to Understanding the Government Document Numbering System before you head to the Documents shelves on the second floor. Many sources for government information are on the Web; be sure to look at the library's United States Government Documents page.

Google U.S Government Search
The popular and helpful Google search applied specifically to finding government information. Searches local, state, military, and national government Web pages.

GPO Monthly Catalog
Catalog of US government publications, covering 1976 - current. Searchable in many ways, via FirstSearch.

Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications.
An annual index is included at the end of each yearly volume, or you can search the Cumulative Subject Index to the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications, 1900-197l.
Reference Indexes

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Finding Articles

Try a Subject begins with search in LUCIA for United States--politics and government--periodicals to get an idea of just a few of the titles the library subscribes to related to American political development. Browsing these would not be a bad way to get ideas for your research.

The best periodical index to use will depend on your topic. Be sure to check the Electronic Resources page for other options. Two of our resources, JSTOR and Project MUSE provide complete full text. Some of our indexes include the following:

Essential Indexes:these should be among your starting points for finding advanced secondary materials.

Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life.
The most important indexes to the scholarly literature of history, in books and proceedings as well as journals. Both include short summaries of the works indexed. America: History and Life includes material on the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Historical Abstracts indexes material on world history, including African, Asian, Latin American and European history, from 1450 to the present. Use the Advanced Search feature for both.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts 1975-
Contains the merged backfiles of Political Science Abstracts, 1975-2000, and ABC POL SCI, 1984-2000. Provides citations, abstracts, and indexing of the international serials literature in political science and its complementary fields, including international relations, law, and public administration / policy.
ABC POL SCI dating back to 1969 is available in the Reference Indexes.

General and Multidisciplinary Indexes: include citations and some full text of materials from a broad variety of fields including history.

Academic OneFile
Broad coverage of academic periodicals going back to 1980. Includes full text of many articles.

EBSCOhost.
Follow the link for EBSCOhost Web. EBSCOhost provides a single Web source for multiple databases; you might want to select the Academic Search Elite. Contains broad and specialized coverage of academic and general periodicals.

Newspapers:

Lexis/Nexis Academic
Provides newswires, citations, abstracts, and more.

New York Times. 1851-current.
Considered to be the American paper of record.
New York Times (1851-2003)
Current issues of the New York Times are available from many sources: see BESS or ProQuest Newspapers below.

ProQuest Newspapers
Provides access to over 300 local, national, and international newspapers, most in full-text. Dates for backfiles vary by title.

Once you have a citation for an article on your topic, try the SFX button button to see if that particular article is available. If you don't find it, you can double check by looking in LUCIA for the title of the journal or newspaper to see if the library owns it. You can also search BESS, an automated search of the library's full text databases, for electronic copies of articles. Materials not owned by the Mudd library or the Appleton Public Library can be requested through Interlibrary Loan. You may find Ulrich's Periodicals Directory Online helpful when you evaluate your sources. See a reference librarian if you need help.

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Internet Resources

American Political Development: A Bibliography for Teaching and Research
An extensive list of sources from Dave Robertson, a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

INFOMINE Scholarly Internet Resource Collections: Social Sciences and Humanities
From librarians at all nine of the University of California campuses and Stanford University. INFOMINE provides "organized access to important university level research and educational tools on the Internet."

Internet Resources for Government and Internet Resources for History
Sources chosen by the librarians here as starting points for your research.

Miller Center of Public Affairs Governing America in a Global Era (GAGE) Program
From the University of Virginia. The GAGE program "focuses on American political development and the intersection of domestic and world politics."

Voice of the Shuttle: History Page
Voice of the Shuttle is a widely-respected resource for Web pages in the humanities produced by Alan Liu, Department of English, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Of course, there are many more web resources available that might be useful in your research. You might want to try looking at sources that select the best of the Web, like these:

It's important to think carefully about any information you find in any format, and to evaluate resources for their accuracy, applicability, and so forth. Evaluation of web resources is especially important. You may want to consult this guide to Evaluating Internet Resources, or this bibliography on Evaluation of Information Sources. You can often learn a lot about a page (and a site) by parsing the URL.

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Style Manuals

Academic Citation and Writing
Style manuals of the humanities, physical sciences, and the social sciences in the Seeley G. Mudd Library.

The Chicago Manual of Style.
A standard source for bibliographic format.
RRef. Z253 .U69 2003

Citing Electronic Documents
This page provides guidance on citing electronic documents and links to other guides, some on specific styles of documentation.

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About Research in American Political Development

Material related to your work will be drawn from many fields besides government and history; be prepared to look at materials from anthropology, philosophy, religious studies, and cultural studies, just to name a few related disciplines. In addition to consulting catalogs and indexes, be sure to look at bibliographies supplied at the end of relevant articles, chapters, and books, and to search library catalogs for book-length bibliographies.

Remember that in any written work you produce your sources must be fully documented. It may help to look at the information on style before you start your research, so that you will have all the details required for documentation at hand when you need them. Then as you write, go back to the resources on style for details on the exact format of your citations.

The sources listed in this guide were chosen for the broad coverage they provide. Direct links are provided to Internet resources and searchable databases, as well as links to LUCIA, the library's online catalog. Be sure to check the library's Electronic Resources page regularly to see new databases and indexes; some of these will only be available to users on the Lawrence campus. Also, you may want to take a look at guides on related topics from the Library Research Guides page.

Evaluating the resources you find is an essential part of the research process. See this guide to hints on evaluation of books and articles and this guide to evaluating Internet resources.

As always, if you have any questions be sure to ask a Reference Librarian.

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Definitions of terms and abbreviations:

Ref. = Reference collection, first floor
RRef.= Ready Reference, shelves behind the reference desk
Periodicals = Level A
GovDoc = U.S. Government Documents, second floor
Reference Indexes = Alphabetically arranged at the end of the reference collection
Microform Area = Reading room east of the reference desk, near microform drawers
q. = Oversized books: interfiled in reference and scores; at end of classes in other collections

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Created 11-April-2007

Gretchen Revie, Reference Librarian