Social Science Librarian
Interdisciplinary search tools
Both LionSearch and Google scholar allow you to search across a wide range of disciplines. Since the politics of Latin America is influenced by many forces (e.g. economic, political, demographic, and social forces) LionSearch or Google Scholar can be good starting points. LionSearch allows you to refine you search in ways not possible in Google Scholar. And, it will connect you to Penn State full text resources.
These sources will help you locate both books and journal articles. LionSearch will also recomend subject databases to allow you to explore your subject in more depth.
LionSearch Basics
- LionSearch This link opens in a new windowan integrated search of books, e-books, research articles, newspaper articles, and other publications.
For full text items, click the "full text online" link to go to the full text of the article.
- If you see the Penn State "GetIt" menu and you need to click the word "article" to get to the full text.
- If there is no "article" link, click the word "journal" to get to the journal page and look for the correct year, volume, issue and pages for the article you need.
Tip: Save the relevant sources into the LionSearch temporary folder by clicking on the small folder icon to right side of the item. When you are finished compiling your sources, click on the folder icon at the top of the screen and email or print (which allows you to copy into your clipboard) the references so you can easily add them to your project.
CAVEAT: computer systems make mistakes when auto-formatting.
- Citation and Writing GuidesDouble check your final paper against the appropriate Citation Style!
Don’t lose your work! Unless you sign up for Refworks, items are saved in LionSearch ONLY for your current session. You won’t be able to go back later and see a list of saved items.
Scholarly Articles in LionSearch
- LionSearch This link opens in a new windowSelect Scholarly & Peer-Review under the Refine Your Search limits on the left.
Books in LionSearch
- LionSearch This link opens in a new windowSelect Book / eBook under the Content Type limits on the left.
Google Scholar
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowscholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research
- Using Google Scholar (2 min video)The basics of using Google's articles search engine.