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PLCY 215 Innovation and Social Change: Creating Change for Good

Guide to resources for PLCY 215

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Sometimes the hardest aspect of research is deciding what to write about! The following links provide great information on how you might go about choosing a topic and narrowing it down.

CRS Reports are produced by the Congressional Research Service, the public policy research arm of Congress and are heavily researched and written by experts in the field on legislative issues. CRS Reports are available fulltext from 1916 to the present.
From the Congressional Research Service homepage:

"The Congressional Research Service (CRS) serves as shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress. CRS experts assist at every stage of the legislative process — from the early considerations that precede bill drafting, through committee hearings and floor debate, to the oversight of enacted laws and various agency activities. CRS approaches complex topics from a variety of perspectives and examines all sides of an issue. Staff members analyze current policies and present the impact of proposed policy alternatives."

Note: there might not be a CRS report for every topic - but do try and see if there is!

Theree are several ways you can locate CRS Reports:
1. Use the Congressional Publications database (linked below)

Follow these steps:

* Document Types
Either keep Select All, or deselect and choose CRS Reports. You can also add Topic Pages.
(If you keep Select All, you will have the opportunity to limit document type within results)

* Keep the search field to: All fields except full text
if searching on the name of a law use the Title search

*Enter Search Terms = keywords. Some examples: 
abortion
"reproductive health"
"student loans"
homeless
"mental health" and (youth or teen*)
(race or racial) and (equal* or equit*) and (farm* or agriculture)
"food desert*" or "food insecurity"
"voting rights" and (race or racial or minorit*)

2. Google and add:
crs and site:gov
your search would look like this:
"minimum wage" crs site:gov
"voting rights" crs site:gov

To locate subject encyclopedias and other types of reference titles, use WorldCat UMD and the Sage Reference Collection and Sage Knowledge  databases (linked below)

Searches in WorldCat UMD, use your keywords and add the defining terms such as:
dictionar*
handbook*
encyclopedia*
biography
bibliographies
bibliography

So, your search would look like this: (notice the capitol OR / AND)

("food desert*" OR "food insecurity" OR "food security") AND (encyclopedia* OR handbook* OR dictionar*)

"education reform" AND (handbook OR dictionar* OR encyclopedia)

"special education" AND reform  AND (handbook OR dictionar* OR encyclopedia)

Some WorldCat Titles: