Library Guides: Social Sciences &amp; Public Policy: Find articles

Key databases for Social Sciences and Public Policy

AnthroSource This link opens in a new window Published by: American Anthropological AssociationDescription: AnthroSource brings 100 years of anthropological material online.Coverage: Varies by title
CINCH (Australian Criminology Database) This link opens in a new window A bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles from published and unpublished material on all aspects of crime and criminal justice from 1968 onwards. Some full text.

Criminology: A Sage Full Text Collection

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window Indexes journal articles, theses / dissertations and other scholarly publications across all disciplines. Ranking partly by most cited.
PsycINFO This link opens in a new window An electronic bibliographic database that provides abstracts and citations to the scholarly literature in the behavioral sciences and mental health. The database includes material of relevance to psychologists and professionals in related fields such as psychiatry, management, business, education, social science, neuroscience, law, medicine, and social work. The PsycINFO database contains almost 2 million references to psychological literature from the 1800s–present, from journal articles, books, book chapters, technical reports, and dissertations. Coverage: 1872+
Scopus This link opens in a new window A bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. Includes nearly 20,500 journal titles from over 5,000 international publishers, of which 19,500 are peer-reviewed. Subject areas cover science, technology, medicine, business, social sciences and humanities. Coverage: Abstracts go back to 1966, References go back to 1996

Sociology A small, specialist, full text database - 28 key academic journals, covering Childhood; Contemporary, Classical and Comparative Sociology; Consumer Culture; Ethnic, Gender and Leisure Studies; Social Theory; Sociology of Sport and of Work and Employment.

SocINDEX with Full Text (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window SocINDEX with Full Text is the world's most comprehensive and highest quality sociology research database. The database features more than 1,986,000 records with subject headings from a 19,600+ term sociological thesaurus designed by subject experts and expert lexicographers. SocINDEX with Full Text contains full text for 708 journals dating back to 1908. This database also includes full text for more than 780 books and monographs, and full text for 9,333 conference papers. Coverage: Varies by title, updated daily.

New Zealand Databases

Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
INNZ: Index New Zealand This link opens in a new window
Newztext This link opens in a new window
Statistics New Zealand This link opens in a new window

Public Policy journals

Types of articles

There are lots of different types of articles.

The difference between articles from a scholarly journal, trade/professional magazine, popular magazine and newspaper article is explained in this short video.

At university you'll often need to read peer reviewed or scholarly articles when doing research for your assignments.

Check Ulrichsweb database to see if journals are peer reviewed.