Columbus Program in State Issues (CPSI): Finding Articles

This is a selective list of databases which can be used for locating journal articles on politics or public policy topics. There are many other databases available, some of which may be more appropriate to your topic of interest.  To see the complete list, click the Alphabetical List of Databases link in the Other Databases box to the left.

Many of our databases will give you the full-text of the article, but that is not always the case.  If the full-text of the article is not available in the database you are looking at, try these options:

• look for the FIND IT icon:  if the database does not have the full-text, you still might be able to get it from another of our resources.  If we have full-text available, FIND IT will lead you to it. 
• if you already have a citation, you can check to see if we have a particular journal (in print or electronic full-text) by using the Journal Finder  Search by the journal name -- you will need to know the year, volume, issue and pages you need.
• If we don't have an article in electronic full-text, but DO have it in print, you can request a copy be scanned and emailed to you.  You can find out more on the Article E-Delivery page.

When searching in the databases for articles the following tips may help you.

* This is the truncation symbol, it searches for variations of your term. For example: teach* will return: teaches, teacher, teachers, teaching

AND - Use the word AND when you want to combine search terms (this will reduce the number of items found). For example: repeated reading AND fluency will find articles that discuss repeated reading and fluency.

OR - Use the word OR when you are searching for a topic that may have different names (this will expand the number of items found). For example: reading aloud OR oral reading will find articles with any of these words.

NOT - Use the word NOT when you want to exclude certain terms from your results. For example: qualitative NOT mixed methods will find articles that talk about qualitative research but exclude any that are mixed methods.