Day 14: Finding Sources

Daniel J. Mallinson

School of Public AffairsPenn State Harrisburgmallinson@psu.edu

PUBPL 304

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Road map

Discuss finding research, beyond the library

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Opening Question

Think about your policy topic for this class. How wouldyou go about finding research on that topic? Wheremight you look?

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Scholarly Research

Figure: “Logo of Google Scholar” by Google, Public Domain

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Scholarly Research

Figure: Screenshot

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What About Policy Research?

Who are other producers of policy research? How do wefind them?

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Government

Official Research

Congressional Research Service

EveryCRSReport.com

Government Accountability Office

Offices of the Inspector General

National Archives

data.gov

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Think Tanks

Research with a perspective

50 Top Think Tanks

New America

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Interest Groups

LOTS of them! Can be hard to find.

A Place to Start:

Vote Smart Lists

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Non-Profits

Private foundationssSupports lots of policy-related research

Pew Charitable Trusts

Robert Wood Johnson (Healthcare)

Russell Sage

Mathematica Policy Research

Institute for Women’s Policy Research

MacArthur Foundation

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Evaluating Research

Our topic for next Friday!

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Homework

1 Use Google Scholar to search for research on your topic. Firstsearch the broad topic and report how many sources (i.e., “hits”)you get. Then explain your process for narrowing down toresearch that is highly relevant to your topic. Be sure to reporthow the number of sources changes throughout your process.

2 Find and report on two different sources of non-peer reviewedresearch (i.e., government, think tanks, interest groups, etcs)that is relevant to your topic. Report how you searched for thesesources.

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