Political Science: Literature Reviews_POLS_classes: Focus Your Search

Clicking on the Subject Term ELECTORAL college generates a new search. These results can be narrowed by adding in an additional concept.

In this example, the choice was made to define the second concept as either the popular vote or direct democracy.  By typing OR, the search engine knows that either of the two search terms in that single box are acceptable, as long as all the results share the designated subject term (DE for descriptor), DE "ELECTORAL college".

Constructing a search with the operators AND and OR is referred to as Boolean searching.

The search displayed above for DE "ELECTORAL college" AND (popular vote OR direct democracy), limited to Peer Reviewed results, brought 54 results.  The article below describes a proposal for a National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, that is supported by a number of U.S. States.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, as a potential solution to the question of whether the Electoral College can be reformed to avoid discrepancies with the popular vote,  is suitable for further study. By focusing on this narrower topic, the researcher has a more manageable task. The next step is to conduct a literature review to assess what political science scholars have written about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. 

Most databases will have a "cite" button, located on the landing screen of the selected article. Use this button to capture the components that you need for your citation. The predominant citation styles, APA, MLA, and Chicago/Turabian are available. If you are using the APSA Style Manual (from the American Political Science Association), then use the instructions from the Manual to make adjustments to the database generated citation.

The citation for an article can be generated by using the CITE button on the right margin of the article's landing page. The citation is necessary for the list of references / works cited.