Michael Travaline
POL 206 A
The Library/Research Project
February 26, 2008
The purpose of the following paper is to outline in some detail the methods and tools which are beneficial to the successful completion of a college-level research paper, specifically in the field of political science and comparative government. The material presented below will provide some insight on becoming more familiar with the aforementioned task, as well as utilizing the proper means to become more efficient in doing so.
When compiling research to be used in a term paper, it is important to be able to decipher between a scholarly journal and some other form of periodical. Though both are published a specific number of times over a certain time period, regular periodicals such as newspapers and magazines, are not scholarly due to their content. Scholarly journals contain articles that will often begin with a brief abstract that generally describes the purpose of the article. They also rarely contain photos, usually displaying charts, graphs, and similar data formats instead. The author of such a piece is always a scholar in the pertaining field, having performed research in relation to the topic, and is accredited to a university or credible research institution. In this way, scholarly journals can also be identified by the language used, as some form of prior education is required to follow the discourse due to its subject-oriented vocabulary. Finally, the presence of the citations such as bibliographies or footnotes is a good indicator of a scholarly journal, especially when other academic works are cited (Engle).
The following list provides several examples of scholarly journals. The format for each entry will be outlined as follows: the name of the journal, (how often it is published), publisher; general subject matter covered. Indexed below this will be provided ways in which the journal can be made useful.
American Politics Research (6 issues/year), SAGE...