LibGuides: ENGL 1005A: Get Out the Vote (Fall 2020): Find Articles

Scholarly Articles - Getting Started

This page provides a list of databases that will help you find scholarly or news articles related to political activism and research.

Search tips:

Identify your topic concepts or search with keywords.
Use joiners to link keywords: AND (narrows results), OR (broadens results)
Separate different concepts by rows (if the database allows)
Look at the Subject Terms and use those as keywords (e.g., voter turnout, political participation, internet voting... there are many to choose from in each database!)

Academic Search Complete
A great starting place for any research topic. Includes a wealth of peer-reviewed and non-scholarly articles on a wide range of topics and disciplinary areas.
JSTOR
Peer-reviewed articles across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select ebooks and other materials.

Political or Social Articles

Social Sciences Full Text
Peer-reviewed articles in sociology, psychology, anthropology, geography, economics, political science, and law.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
Peer-reviewed and non-scholarly articles in political science, international relations, law, and public administration/policy.
PAIS International
Public Affairs Information Service includes peer-reviewed articles, books, government documents, reports, conference papers, web content, and more with a focus on public administration, including social conditions and public policy.

News Articles

Ethnic NewsWatch
Current and historical news from the 1980s to current. News sources cover the culture and history of ethnic and minority issues, including minority and native press publications, in a variety of languages.
News, by Gale OneFile
Major U.S. regional, national, and local newspapers, as well as leading titles from around the world. It also includes thousands of images, radio and TV broadcasts, and transcripts.
New York Times (1851-2019)
A newspaper archive of full-page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. As the leading national newspaper, the New York Times gives importance evidence of the history of the U.S. For current New York Times, go to New York Times (1980-present), and for current digital coverage, see New York Times - Digital Edition.
New York Times (1980-present)
A newspaper archive of the print version of the New York Times to 1980. For older back issues, see the New York Times Historical (1851-2019), and for current digital coverage, see New York Times - Digital Edition.

Current and Controversial Issues

Opposing Viewpoints in Context
Contains contextual information and opinions on hundreds of today's hottest social issues. Features continuously updated viewpoints, topic overviews, full-text magazines, academic journals, news articles, primary source documents, statistics, images, videos, audio files, and links to vetted websites.
CQ Researcher
Non-scholarly reports and analysis on issues in the news. Reports are written by journalists and professionally fact-checked. Each report includes an introductory overview, background and timeline, assessment of the current situation, tables and maps, a pro/con debate, and a list of further reading.

Literature (Literary Criticism)

MLA International Bibliography
Peer-reviewed articles in literature, language, folklore, dramatic arts (film, radio, television, theater), linguistics, the history of publishing, and teaching in all these areas.
JSTOR
Peer-reviewed articles across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select ebooks and other materials.
Gale Literature
Provides access to Gale Literature including Resource Center, Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Literature Criticism and LitFinder. The database brings together these literary databases allowing searching across these resources.
- Contemporary Authors Online
- Dictionary of Literary Biography
- Literature Criticism Online

Google Scholar

GoogleScholar searches the entire web for scholarly materials.

Downside of using Google Scholar:

There is no way to search for only peer-reviewed articles in academic journals.
It lists unpublished works, such as dissertations or theses, without a way to filter them out.
You will get millions of results organized by popularity (highest cited).

Upsides of using Google Scholar:

You can easily search for an article by title.
You can press the "cited by" button to find similar articles and to see who else has cited the article.
Google Scholar can recognize you as a Cal State LA student so you have better access to articles (see below)

How to get Google Scholar to recognize you are a Cal State LA Student:

If Google Scholar knows you are a Cal State LA student, you will see "Find it @ Cal State LA" links, pictured below.

If you are on-campus, access Google Scholar from the library home page to ensure you are connected to Cal State LA's articles.

If you are off-campus, access Google Scholar from the library home page. If you do not go through the library homepage, make sure you add Cal State LA to your institutions:

Requesting an Unavailable Article

If you find an article we do not have, try searching for it in GoogleScholar by title first.

If you cannot find it, click the "request this article" link. Register for ILLiad and request the article (see below, free for Cal State LA students). You will receive an email when it is available for you to view and download.