Subject Guides
Literature Reviews
Guide Contents
Literature Sources
This is not meant to be a full list of sources, but a starting point. For more databases, see the Subject Guide for your area of study.
- Public Administration AbstractsIncludes bibliographic records covering essential areas related to public administration, including public administration theory, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline.
- Google ScholarFinds scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. If you use this Google Scholar link, you will be able to use the Get it link to take advantage of the Libraries' full text and InterLibrary Loan services.
- Sociological AbstractsProvides access to the latest research in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Includes the subset Social Services Abstracts.
- Sustainability Reference CenterFull-text database that covers many areas relating to sustainability such as corporate social responsibility, environmental stewardship, regulations, green issues, renewable energy, and social entrepreneurship.
- Business Source UltimateJournals in all disciplines of business. Includes industry reports, market research, and SWOT analysis.
- Education Source UltimateFull text for more than 1,700 journals, 550 books and conference papers, citations for over 4 million articles including book reviews and over 100,000 controlled and cross-referenced names of educational tests.
- Principal JournalsThe list of DPA approved journals as found the Handbook.
Search Literature Reviews
Locating a literature review related to your topic can not only speed up your research process by helping identify large amounts of relevant literature.
- Annual ReviewsThese summarize the current state of research on a subject by organizing, synthesizing, and critically evaluating the relevant literature.
- Campbell Collaboration Library of Systematic ReviewsSystematic reviews that covers criminal justice, social welfare, international development, education, and methods.
Tips
Build on research (ethically)
- Using literature reviews related to your topic in order to find sources can be a fast-track way to get started. Some databases, such as Annual Reviews (all subjects) and Cohrane Library (health sciences) make this easy to do.
- You can try searching "literature review" AND "yourtopic" in many databases, but may get too many results..if so...
- Some databases will let you limit to searching just literature reviews by using Subject Headings or Descriptors. Look on the screen for a Thesaurus option, or looking under the HELP option (usually under the top right corner).
- Mine the reference list of relevant articles and books. Many of our databases make this easy by providing a link to the reference list right on screen (with the full text of the literature or the
service. Keep particular track of names, works and journal titles that keep re-occurring. - Web of Science will allow you to search for articles and journals in which a particular author or a particular article has been cited, thus allowing you to trace a methodology or theme more easily. It also creates a citation map going backwards or forwards so you can see where the cited work has been cited and then that was cited or...in short, you are creating graphical representations of who was cited in a paper, and who cited the paper, across fields, for three generations.
