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The purpose of this guide is to familiarize you with the best resources for research on US-Latin American international relations..
Getting Started
Groups of 2 to 4 students will select a US-Latin American international relations issue and prepare a 20 minute presentation for the class.
- Pre Research - Conduct pre-reseach using books, the internet, or reference sources to gain background knowledge of a possible topic.
- Identify and focus topic - Click here for help focusing your topic.
- Write a thesis/argument - Keep in mind, this will change throughout the course of your research. You may have to revise your argument or thesis statement as you research and understand your topic better. Click here for help writing a thesis.
- Conduct your research
- Books
- Articles
- What is scholarly research?
- Prepare your presentation
- Cite your sources - Using the style of your choosing, cite direct quotes, summaries and paraphrases in the text of your paper, and provide a bibliography or works cited list of all the materials used in your paper.
Why cite? Check out this tutorial from UCLA.
- APSA Style Guide Tip Sheet
- Guide to APSA Style Basics (CSU Chico)
What is an academic source?
For your paper and presentation, you are required to use academic sources. This chart applies to books, journal articles and websites.
|
Scholarly (academic, peer-reviewed, refereed) |
Non-scholarly (popular) |
Audience |
academic readers |
general audience |
Author |
researchers, experts, specialists |
journalists, free-lance writers, generalists |
Vocabulary |
professional jargon; may be difficult to read |
common; easy to understand |
Structure |
specific structure (e.g. abstract, methodology, data, results, conclusion, references) |
structured like a story; can look glossy with pictures and ads; comparatively shorter |
Sources |
long list of bibliography, references, footnotes *** |
no bibliography or references listed |
| Examples |
Ethnic and Racial Studies; Gender & Society; International Migration Review; American Journal of Public Health; Latin American Perspectives |
Time; Newsweek; Business Week;
US News & World Report; New York Times; Christian Science Monitor |
***Scholarly sources will always have a BIBLIOGRAPHY (e.g. reference list, works cited, footnotes).
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
- CSUSM Library Catalog (today) Search our local collection of about 250,000 books.
- Circuit (1-3 day delivery)
Search the collections of other San Diego area libraries -- about 3,000,000 books. Find and request books directly online; pick them up at our Library in 1-3 days.
- WorldCat (5-10 day delivery)
Search the collections of libraries world-wide -- about 52,000,000 books. Find a book in this database, and fill-out an Interlibrary Loan delivery request. Book will be delivered to Library for pickup.
Articles
Journal articles include some of the latest research in the field. They're a good source for finding very detailed information on your topic. To find articles, you need to start with a research database. Each will allow you to search hundreds or even thousands of journals at once.
Watch a video on searching for journal articles (approx. 6 min.) 
Most Useful
- Academic Search Elite A large, multi-disciplinary database offering full text for nearly 1,850 scholarly journals, including more than 1,250 peer-reviewed titles.Includes scholarly journals such as Political Studies.
- Blackwell Blackwell includes over 800 journals in Arts, Business, Health Sciences Humanities, Social Behavioral Sciences, and Science and Technology.
- 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.
- Project Muse Full-text coverage for hundreds of scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics
- ProQuest Direct
Search all of the business and newspaper databases on Proquest together.
- Sage Publications SAGE includes over 460 journals in Business, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology and Medicine.
- LexisNexis Statistical
A collection of statistical tables and links to publications that the tables come from.
Citing Your Sources
As you write your paper, you'll need to cite passages and
ideas from the sources you've found. In order to cite
your resources properly, you need to follow the style
guide used by political scientists.
Check out this website that will create a citation for you
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APSA Style Manual for Political Science.
Washington, DC : American Political Science
Association, 2006
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