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Political Science 302: Writing in Political Science

An online course guide for researching topics in the field of political science for POLISCI 302

Looking Up a Citation?

If you have found (or been given) a book or article that is very relevant for your topic, review the list of references (the sources used by the authors). Some of these cited works may be helpful to you also. To find cited books or articles, where you look depends on what it is:

Is it a book (or book chapter or government document or videorecording)?

  • Search Research@UWW's "Books, Media & more (UW Whitewater)" for the title or author. To find a chapter in a book, look for the BOOK's title. Put titles in quotes, as for a phrase, e.g., "war and peace"
  • Search other UW libraries using Research@UWW's "Books, Media & more (UW System)" for the title or author. If it's at another UW library you may be able to request that it be sent to your UW-Whitewater campus library for your use.

Is it an article (in a journal, magazine, or newspaper)?

  • Search Research@UWW "Everything" and put all or part of the article title in " " as a phrase. If there are too many results, add limiters on the left, such as date or select Resource Type Articles. You can also add the author's last name to the search.
  • Use the Journal Search for a particular journal, magazine or newspaper's title. UW-Whitewater's libraries have access to thousands of titles, some online and some not. Check the dates for which full text access is provided, if this is displayed.

The "How to Borrow from Other Libraries" guide explains how to get materials unavailable online or in Andersen/Lenox (Rock campus) libraries.

What Am I?

To try to find items in a reference list you've found, you need to know if the reference is to a book or an article. How can you tell from the citation?

BOOK (note name of publisher)

Bagdikian, B. (1977). The media monopoly. Beacon Press.


JOURNAL ARTICLE (note volume & page numbers)

Chambers, T. (2001). Losing owners: Deregulation and small radio markets. Journal of Radio Studies, 8, 292–315.


BOOK CHAPTER (note name of publisher, plus the word "In")

[NOTE: In this example, the first title is the CHAPTER title, which is "In" the BOOK title.]

McDowell, S. D. (2000). Globalization, local governance and the United States Telecommunications Act of 1996. In J. Wheeler, Y. Aoyama, & B. Warf (Eds.), Cities in the telecommunications age: The fracturing of geographies (pp. 112–29). Routledge.

 

ONLINE articles and books: Citations end in a doi or URL, if available, e.g., https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444318197.ch3