Law Reviews are the scholarly publication of the legal world. They are a fantastic resource for finding scholarly legal information about a topic, including legal citations. It is often easier to begin legal research with these sources rather than in primary sources like cases and legislation.
Full text of law reviews/legal periodicals plus primary sources such as the Code of Federal Regulations; Federal Register; Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS); Treaties and Agreements Library; United States Code; U.S. Attorney General Opinions; U.S. Congressional Documents; U.S. Federal Agency Documents, Decisions, and Appeals; U.S. Federal Legislative History Library; U.S. Statutes at Large; State Session Laws Library; State Statutes: A Historical Archive; Acts of the Parliament of Canada (Annual Statutes); World Constitutions Illustrated; World Treaty Library. Also includes special topics databases.
Scholarly articles are written by academics who are experts in their field and published in scholarly journals. Peer-reviewed articles are scholarly articles that have been read and vetted by other experts in the field (e.g., the author's peers) before the journal accepts them for publication.
Find citations to scholarly articles in Political Science and other Social Sciences by searching by keyword in the following databases.
The full text of an article within a database is provided in multiple formats. Look for:
The Get it at UC link will provide you options for how to access the full text of the article. If there are no online links available, this means you need to request the item through Interlibrary Loan if a print version is not available at UC San Diego. The Library will deliver the full text of an article to you free of charge. When requesting you will need your Library ID number.
Your library card/account number begins with "21822" and can be found on the back of your UCSD ID card or within the UCSD app. Enter the 14-digit number without spaces.
News sources can be especially useful as primary sources that describe events as they unfold and court cases for which there are no published opinions. News sources may also cover situations or events that are newer or more specific than one might find in scholarly articles.
►Bonus search tip: Google Scholar is a useful tool because it searches within the full text of articles. It's most useful when your topic is so narrow that you don't find much using the subject-specific databases.
A quick checklist:
1. Where did you find the source? Did you use a scholarly database? UC Library Search?
2. Who's responsible for the work? Is it published by a university press or another known scholarly publisher? What are the author's credentials? Is the author a professor or other known academic or scholar?
3. Does it look like a scholarly work? Does it have footnotes and/or endnotes and/or a bibliography? What kinds of sources is it citing? Where did the author get their information? What research methodology are they using?
