LibGuides: Political Science: Articles

Scholarly vs Popular Articles

Scholarly journals have collections of articles written by experts in academic or professional fields to keep others interested in that field, up-to-date on the most recent research, findings, and news. These articles are reviewed by a journal editorial board or experts in the specific discipline (peer-reviewed).

Popular Sources are articles, blog posts, and news feeds that are written primarily by journalists to inform the general public about interesting and newsworthy events. These articles may or may not be subject to a review process and should be heavily evaluated before use. Popular articles are not peer-reviewed.

	Scholarly	Popular
Who is the Author?	Researchers, Scholars and Professors	Primarily journalists
Who is the targeted audience?	Students, scholars, and researchers	The general public
What is the purpose of the article?	To advance understanding in a field of study	To inform the public and sell newspapers/magazines
Are there citations?	Always	Not often
Are there ads?	Rarely	Most of the time
Are current events covered?	No - the peer review process takes time	Yes
Examples	Policy and Society	The Nation, National Review

Recommended Databases

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
The world's most valuable and comprehensive scholarly, multi-disciplinary database. Indexes newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals in all disciplines. Contains a significant amount of full-text. Content available from 1915-present.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Contains more than 150 million pages and 150,000 titles of legal history and government documents. Includes coverage of more than 2,400 law-related periodicals. Contains the Congressional Record, Federal Register, and Code of Federal Regulations, coverage of the U.S. Reports back to 1754, and treaties, constitutions, case law, world trials, classic treatises, international trade, foreign relations, U.S. Presidents, and more.
Opposing Viewpoints in Context This link opens in a new window
Opposing Viewpoints in Context helps students research, analyze and organize a broad variety of data for conducting research, completing writing assignments, preparing for debates, creating presentations and more. Includes different information formats, include statistics, opinion, news, and peer-reviewed articles.
JSTOR - Full Text This link opens in a new window
This is a full-text archive of key academic journals in many disciplines, mostly in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Being an archive, it does NOT USUALLY have the current issues of these journals. Most journals have a “lag time” of 2-5 years.
Military & Government Collection This link opens in a new window
Designed to offer current news pertaining to all branches of the military and government, this database offers a thorough collection of periodicals, academic journals, and other content pertinent to the increasing needs of those sites.
Peace Research Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Peace Research Abstracts includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to peace research, including conflict resolution, international affairs, peace psychology, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline. EBSCO has digitized the full archive of this index, including coverage dating back to 1964.
Public Administration Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Covers public administration theory, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.The index contains more than 93,600 records, including the Journal of Public Economics, Public Administration, Public Administration Review, etc. Coverage from 1974-present.
Race Relations Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Race Relations Abstracts includes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to race relations, including ethnic studies, discrimination, immigration studies, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.
Social Sciences Research Network This link opens in a new window
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is devoted to the rapid worldwide dissemination of social science research and is composed of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences.

In Print at Waterfield

PAIS -- Public Affairs Information Service; Available in Waterfield Library Reference Room. Covers 1915-2000.

CQ Almanac -- Congressional Quarterly Almanac; reference room north wall. Call number JK1 .C66. Congressional statistics, bills, speeches, etc from 1945-present.

PAIS and CQ Almanac are located on the Second Floor (Main Level) of the Waterfield Library in the Reference Area. PAIS on the last shelf past the Government Document section on the right, facing the windows. CQ Almanac is on the third shelf, facing the study tables.

Waterfield Library Second Floor (Main Level)

Newspapers

Newspaper Source This link opens in a new window
Provides selected full text coverage for more than 240 newspapers and other sources. This collection includes cover-to-cover full text for USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor and The Times (London) as well as selected full text from more than regional newspapers, international papers, news wire services and TV/Radio transcripts. Generally one year's coverage only.
New York Times This link opens in a new window
The New York Times Archive searches the contents of the New York Times from 1851 to present. Full text is provided to Murray State users. Murray State users will need to create an account to authenticate access, AND MUST BE ON CAMPUS FOR REGISTRATION. Following registration, access is available off-campus. Visit https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/ippass to create a free account. If you are unable able to come to campus to create your account, please contact Cris Ferguson .
Opposing Viewpoints in Context This link opens in a new window
Opposing Viewpoints in Context helps students research, analyze and organize a broad variety of data for conducting research, completing writing assignments, preparing for debates, creating presentations and more. Includes different information formats, include statistics, opinion, news, and peer-reviewed articles.
Times Digital Archive 1785-2014 This link opens in a new window
The Times (London) is the world's oldest continuously published newspaper. Readers — world leaders and the general public — have consistently turned to The Times for its in‐depth news coverage, parliamentary reports and comment, editorial opinion and unique view of history from the major reporters and editors of the period. The Times Digital Archive covers years 1785–2012.

Browse Scholarly Journals in Political Science

Political Science Journals (Browzine)

Finding the Full-Text of an Article

If the full-text of an article is available via the database, there will be a link labeled "PDF Full Text" or "HTML Full Text"
If the full-text is not available via the database, you will see a button labeled "get it MSU" and be redirected to a new page.
If the article is available via another database, you should see a link
If the article is not available you have the option to
- Request it via Interlibrary Loan
- Search Google Scholar
- Search for it in Print
- Ask a librarian for further assistance