Databases - Use for Literature Reviews - International Studies

International Studies Librarian

Shaunda Vasudev

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Subjects: International Studies

Graduate Political Science and International Studies Librarian

Sarah Gilchrist

she/her/hers

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Contact:

American University Library, B 46

202-885-3181

Subjects: International Studies, Political Science & Government, Public Administration

Scholarly Journal Databases for Multiple Disciplines

Scopus This link opens in a new window
Largest bibliographic database of peer-reviewed literature in the world. Provides citations and abstracts from over 26,000 peer-reviewed journals.
Especially useful for writing literature reviews because one can sort results by times cited.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Web of Science Core Collection contains several components: Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Conference Proceedings Index, Book Citation Index, Emerging Sources Citation Index, Current Chemical Reactions, and Index Chemicus. To search in a subset of the components, select the database then select the desired index or indices in the 'Editions' dropdown menu.
Dissertations and Theses Global (ProQuest) This link opens in a new window
Especially useful for writing literature reviews because of their extensive bibliography and literature review.
Citations and abstracts to Ph.D. dissertations and Master's theses from around the world. Includes the full text of most dissertations and theses from the U.S. and Canada.
JSTOR: The Scholarly Journal Archive This link opens in a new window
Publications from 1st issue to a moving wall of up to 10 years - limiting access to articles published in the last 10 years. Full text of more than 2600 core journals in the humanities, social sciences and sciences. Excellent source for older (pre-1980s) articles.

Google Scholar (AU version)
Google Scholar may be the world’s largest academic search engine, indexing peer reviewed articles, books, conference papers, theses and dissertations, and other scholarly literature. The full text of items may not be available for free, but those that overlap with AU Library’s collections can be accessed there.
If you receive a reCAPTCHA error, please follow the instructions in our FAQ about configuring your Google Scholar settings.

Scholarly Journal Databases for Specific Disciplines

International Relations, Political Science and Security Studies

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window Worldwide Political Science Abstracts is a major political science index providing citations and abstracts to journal articles, book chapters, books, and websites on subjects including international relations, law, and public administration and policy. Dating from 1975 and updated monthly, the WPSA is built on two indices: Political Science Abstracts and ABC POLSCI. Roughly 1,510 titles are being monitored for coverage; of these, 67% are published outside the United States.
PAIS International with Archive This link opens in a new window The PAIS International database from ProQuest contains references to more than 634,401 journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies, microfiche, Internet material, and more. Includes publications from over 120 countries throughout the world. In addition to English, some of the indexed materials are published in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.PAIS Archive is a retrospective conversion of the PAIS Annual Cumulated Bulletin, volumes 1-62, published 1915-1976.
International Political Science Abstracts This link opens in a new window Citations and abstracts from roughly 900 journals and yearbooks in the fields of political science, international relations, and public administration. Covers publications from 1975 to the present. In most cases the abstracts are in English, and in some cases (non-English articles) in French. When the original article is not in English, the title in the record is in its own language, English and French.

Asian Studies

China Academic Journals Database This link opens in a new window Full-text Chinese-language articles from more than 3832 scholarly journal articles published in mainland China. Publication years vary widely, but most are from the 1990s to present. The articles can be searched in English as well as Chinese. Some articles have titles and abstracts translated into English.American University's subscription encompasses the following classifications:(G) Politics/ Military Affairs/ Law(H) Education & Social Sciences(J) Economics & Management
Korean Scholarly Journals Online (DBpia) This link opens in a new window A scholarly, multi-disciplinary full-text database, including nearly 1.5 million articles from 1,600 scholarly journals published by prominent academic societies and research centers in South Korea. The journal titles are arranged by subject categories such as economics, engineering, education, and medicine. This resource was made possible through a grant from the Korean Foundation.

Business and Social Enterprise

Business Source Premier This link opens in a new window Major business resource that provides access to scholarly and peer-reviewed articles from all disciplines of business, including marketing, management, accounting, banking, finance and industry information, in addition to market research reports. Articles, many of which are full-text, are from thousands of scholarly business journals.
ABI/Inform (Business and Management) This link opens in a new window Contains bibliographic citations, abstracts, and full text of articles appearing in international business and management publications, academic journals, and trade magazines published worldwide.

Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice Abstracts This link opens in a new window Criminal Justice Abstracts contains comprehensive coverage of international journals, books, reports, dissertations and unpublished papers on criminology and related disciplines.
NCJRS Virtual Library This link opens in a new window The NCJRS Abstracts database is produced by the U.S. Department of Justice and contains summaries of over 189,000 U.S. and international publications on research, policy, and practice related to criminal and juvenile justice and drug control. The publications covered are from 1970 to present and include federal, state, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, audiovisual presentations, and unpublished research.

Economics

EconLit This link opens in a new window Provides abstracts of the world's economic literature produced by the American Economic Association. It includes coverage of over 400 major journals as well as articles in collective volumes (essays, proceedings, etc.), books, book reviews, dissertations, and working papers.
Annual Reviews This link opens in a new window Annual Reviews is a collection of more than 50 annual review journals covering many science and social science disciplines. Each journal exclusively publish review articles which synthesize and summarize research within a field or discipline. This database includes full-text access to every historical article and issue within the collection as well as the most recent articles published.

Education

ERIC (Education) via ProQuest This link opens in a new window The ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) database is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to provide extensive access to educational-related literature and indexes over 700 journals in the field of education. In addition, ERIC provides coverage of conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs.
ERIC (Education) via Ovid This link opens in a new window The ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) database is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education to provide extensive access to educational-related literature and indexes over 700 journals in the field of education. In addition, ERIC provides coverage of conferences, meetings, government documents, theses, dissertations, reports, audiovisual media, bibliographies, directories, books and monographs.

Environment and Sustainability

GreenFILE This link opens in a new window Provides citations and abstracts to journal and magazine articles, book chapters and government documents on many aspects of the environment, including global warming, energy conservation, and pollution.

Gender and Sexuality

GenderWatch This link opens in a new window GenderWatch indexes over 200 scholarly journals, magazines, newsletters and newspapers (about 1970 to present) on the evolution of gender roles as they affect men and women. Many of the articles are full-text and there are 19 full-text books.
LGBTQ+ Source This link opens in a new window Index to international literature on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender issues.
Women's Studies International This link opens in a new window Abstracts of articles from over 2,000 journals and magazines in the areas of Women's Studies and feminist research. Also covers books, newspapers, newsletters, bulletins, reports and proceedings. Coverage dates from the 19th c. to present. Includes the Women Studies Abstracts (1972 to present) and other bibliographies.

Health

PubMed This link opens in a new window This database from the National Library of Medicine offers over 37 million citations to biomedical and life sciences literature, plus links to full-text resources.
MEDLINE This link opens in a new window An online database of over 18 million citations on biomedical literature from the National Library of Medicine.

History

America: History & Life (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window An index of scholarly literature on the history and culture of the United States and Canada.
Historical Abstracts (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window Bibliographic database covering the world's scholarly literature in history, excluding the United States and Canada. Equivalent to the printed version of Historical Abstracts.

Intercultural and International Communication

Communication Source This link opens in a new window Developed from a merger of Communication and Mass Media Complete and Communications Abstracts, Communication Source offers worldwide full-text content pertaining to communication, linguistics, rhetoric and discourse, speech-language pathology, media studies and related fields and includes many unique sources previously not available.

International Development

World Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology Abstracts This link opens in a new window Citations and abstracts to journals, reports, conference papers, and books on agricultural economics, environmental and natural resources, biotechnology, and rural sociology.

Latin American Studies

Fuente Académica Premier This link opens in a new window Fuente Academica Premier is a rapidly expanding collection of over 570 scholarly journals from Latin America, Portugal and Spain. All major subject areas are covered with particular emphasis on agriculture, biological sciences, economics, history, law, literature, philosophy, psychology, public administration, religion and sociology. The database is updated weekly.
PRISMA (Publicaciones y Revistas Sociales y Humansticas) This link opens in a new window Over 115 academic journals in the humanities and social sciences on the subject of Latin America and Latino/a studies.
Hispanic-American Periodicals Index (HAPI) This link opens in a new window Citations to articles, book reviews, literary works, and other materials about Latin America, the Caribbean, and Hispanics/Latinos in the US, from journals published throughout the world.

Legal Studies, Rights and Ethics

HeinOnline Law Journal Library This link opens in a new window A comprehensive collection of full-text PDF (or text) images of major law journal articles, including back issues.
Philosopher's Index This link opens in a new window The Philosopher's Index provides indexing and abstracts from books and journals of philosophy and related fields. It covers the areas of ethics, aesthetics, social philosophy, political philosophy, epistemology, and metaphysic logic as well as material on the philosophy of law, religion, science, history, education, and language.

Middle East Studies

Arab World Research Source This link opens in a new window Interdisciplinary collection containing 140+ scholarly journals (the majority featuring Arabic full text), plus magazines, trade publications, industry profiles, country reports, market research reports and conference papers relating to the Arab World.

Organizational Studies

Human Resources Abstracts This link opens in a new window Human Resources Abstracts includes bibliographic records covering areas related to human resources, including human resource management, employee assistance, organizational behavior, and other areas of relevance to the discipline. Indexed titles include Journal of Human Resources, Human Resource Management, and Human Resource Development International.
Public Administration Abstracts This link opens in a new window Indexes and abstracts journal and magazine articles on public administration. Sample subject coverage includes administrative structures and organization, public and social services, public service personnel, and theory and method. Date coverage is 1960s to present.

Peace and Conflict Resolution

Peace Research Abstracts This link opens in a new window Indexes and abstracts journal and magazine articles, books, chapters, conference papers, and government publications on peace and conflict studies.

Psychology

PsycINFO (Ovid) This link opens in a new window Indexing and abstracting of over 1800 journals in psychology, books, book chapters, technical reports and dissertations.

Religious Studies

Atla Religion Database with AtlaSerials This link opens in a new window Produced by Atla, a membership association of collectors and connectors in religion and theology, Atla Religion Database is a major international index for the scholarly study of religion. All major religious faiths are represented. The Atla Religion Database with AtlaSerials collection contains over 2.7 million records, indexing over 2,300 journals, 276,000 essays, and 826,000 reviews. Full text is provided for more than 340 journals.
Religion Database This link opens in a new window Abstracts and some full text of over 100 journals and magazines in religious studies and theology, including religious news and commentaries.

Sociology

Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,800+ serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers. Coverage is from 1952 to the present.

Urban Studies

Urban Studies Abstracts This link opens in a new window Indexes academic journals and books on topics relevant to metropolitan studies. Subjects covered include urban affairs, community development, and urban history.