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This guide is a list of resources that will help you complete your research paper on a piece of state or federal legislation.
Suggested Research Process
This is just one way to structure the research process for this assignment.
- Choose your topic.
There are a few ways for you to decide the topic of your research paper:
- Choose your issue. Have you heard something of interest in the news lately? Is there something you're passionate about? Use it as your main topic, and we can find a piece of legislation to fit.
- CQ Researcher. This database offers news and scholarly research on current topics in the nation.
- Wikpedia. Wikipedia can be a great source to learn more about a particular area of legislation. However, you should NEVER include a Wikipedia entry in your paper or references. Let me repeat... NEVER include a Wikipedia entry in your paper or references.
Find a piece of legislation and use the resources below to look up the details of the bill/law.
- Major Environmental laws and legislation (EPA)
- Choose your piece of legislation. Maybe you heard recently of a piece of legislation in California or the nation that interests you. Use this as your starting point, and find information to support your analysis.
- Find your representative. Use a piece of legislation that your representative sponsored.
-
Do some preliminary research. Once you have chosen your issue, learn a little more about it, and take a stand. For this assignment, you will need to include your viewpoint of the legislation, and find information to back it up.
Here are a few good places to find background information:
- Legislation overview You can sometimes find general background information from the bill itself. Remember, at this point, you're only looking for enough information to form an opinion.
- News articles News articles are a great way to learn more about your topic. Journalists usually write a short background about the issue in each article.
- Wikipedia Use Wikipedia to learn more about your topic, but DO NOT use it as a source in your research paper.
- Focus your topic. Now that your have your topic, and your opinion on your topic, you can find supporting research.
- Collecting information. Information that supports your topic will come in many forms.
During this part of the research process, start reading through articles to see if they fall into any of these areas (paper requirements)
- Detailed write-up of the piece of legislation.
- History of the legislation (how it came to be on the agenda).
- Who sponsored the bill?
- Are there any special interest groups involved? If so who and why?
- Was the legislation passed? By what margin?
- If it failed to pass why did it fail? Has it been resubmitted?
- What have been the results of the bill’s passage? Positive or negative?
- Putting it all together. Now you're ready to start writing.
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Primary Sources
Primary sources are sources that are written at the time of the event, usually by someone who was a participant of the event. They can be official government record, one person's account of the event, or arguments made during legislative hearings.
For this assignment, primary sources can provide you with the following types of information:
- Text of the legislation
- History of the legislation
- Sponsors
- Special interest groups
- Voting records (did it pass? by what margin?)
Find legislation by topic or bill number
- California Assembly and Senate Bills, Legislative Counsel of California. Search by keywords or bill number to find state legislation about your topic. You can search the current or past sessions. Included in this database are the following:
- Status and history
- Bill text
- Analysis (this analysis is used by legislators to make voting decisions, so it would be considered a primary source)
- Votes
- California Ballot Measures Database. A comprehensive, searchable source of information on California ballot propositions from 1911 to 2000 (limited amounts of information for 2001-2003). The database contains the full text of the propositions, accompanying material contained in the ballot pamphlets, related legal and legislative history, and digital images of the ballot pamphlets.
- THOMAS, Library of Congress. THOMAS includes legislative information from the U.S. Congress. Search by keywords or bill number to find federal legislation about your topic. You can search the current or past sessions. When you find a bill, click on "Bill Summary & Status" for the following:
- Text of Legislation
- Cosponsors
- Related Bills
- Major Congressional Actions - this is where you will find the voting records, and passage/failure
- LexisNexis Congressional Use LexisNexis to search by keyword for bills starting with the 1969-70 session.
- Choose Legislative Histories, Bills & Laws on the left, and choose the tab Keyword Search or Get a Document.
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Secondary Sources
Secondary sources provide analysis and interpretation of a topic or event. Some secondary sources include:
For this assignment, secondary sources can provide you with the following types of information:
- History of the legislation
- Sponsors
- Special interest groups
- Reasons why the piece of legislation passed or failed
- Results of the bill
Books
To search for books, you need to use a library catalog. Depending on how much time you have, you have a couple of options:
News articles
A great place to find background information on your topic is in news articles. While these are not considered scholarly sources, they can provide you with a wealth of current information on your topic.
| Database |
Full Text |
Coverage |
Scholarly |
Academic Search Premier (EbscoHost)
Our most popular database. Covers a wide array of subjects with full text for nearly 1,850 scholarly journals, including more than 1,250 peer-reviewed titles.
|
 +  |
1984→current |
most |
Lexis Nexis Academic
Provides access to a wide range of news, business, legal, and reference information. |
 |
1975→current |
few |
Ethnic NewsWatch
Full-text ethnic newspapers, searchable in English or Spanish.
|
 |
1992→current |
none |
ProQuest Newspapers
Includes coverage of over 300 major U.S. and international newspapers, such as The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune. |
|
1970→current |
none |
Scholarly articles
Use these databases to search for scholarly articles. To access the full-text of the article, look for the  button.
 Click here for the difference between scholarly and popular articles.
| Database |
Full Text |
Coverage |
Scholarly |
Academic Search Pre (EbscoHost)
Our most popular database. Covers a wide array of subjects with full text for nearly 1,850 scholarly journals, including more than 1,250 peer-reviewed titles.
|
+ |
1984→current |
most |
JSTOR
Contains complete full-text back files (EXCEPT for the latest five years) of core scholarly journals in such areas as sociology, history, economics, political science, mathematics, African-American studies, Asian studies and others. |
|
1838→2001 |
all |
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Citing Sources
As you write your paper, you'll need
to cite passages and ideas from the sources
you've found using APA Citation Style. In addition, you will need to format your paper, according to APA's manuscript preparation guidelines.
Your citation for the bill, will look like this:
United States. Cong. Senate. 106th Congress, 1st Session. S. 608, A Bill to Amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 [introduced in the U.S. Senate; 15 March 1999]. 106th Congress. 24 May 1999 <http://thomas.loc.gov/>.
California. Leg. Assembly. 2006-07 Session. A.B. 271, Illegal Immigration: Public Benefits. [introduced in the California Assembly; 9 February 2007]. 16 April 2007
<http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/>
California Ballot Measure. 1996. Proposition 215, Medical Use of Marijuana. 24 March 2008
<http://traynor.uchastings.edu/>
 |
APA: Publication manual
of the American Psychological Association.
5th ed. Washington, DC : American
Psychological Association, 2001.
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