PLAN 769: Housing and Community Development Policy and Planning
We've made changes in response to COVID-19. Here’s what to know about campus libraries for fall 2021.
Resources on this page
This page has links to find:
- Background Research
- Think Tank Reports
- Policy Actors
- Scholarly Articles
- Books
- Newspaper Articles
- Statistics
- Writing Resources
Background Research
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CQ ResearcherThe CQ Researcher is the perfect answer for people beginning research on current topics. It covers the most current and controversial issues of the day. From Abortion to War, each issue gives you a comprehensive review of the controversies, historical background, chronology of important events, opposing views from experts on the subject, and extensive bibliographies for additional research.
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Issues and Controversies on FileContains full text articles on current topics of interest, arranged in opposing points of view. It is intended to give users a quick grasp of the essentials of more than 250 controversial news topics. It also contains chronologies, illustrations, maps, tables, sidebars, bibliographies and contact information.
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Points of ViewProvides students with a series of essays that present multiple sides of a current issue. Essays provide questions and materials for further thought and study and are accompanied by thousands of supporting articles.
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ProCon.org"Mission: Promoting critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan, primarily pro-con format."
Find Think Tank Reports
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Google Think Tank Search EngineCustomized Google search of 700 of the most important US and international think tanks. Think tanks are institutions affiliated with universities, governments, advocacy groups, foundations, non-governmental organizations, and businesses that generate public policy research and analysis.
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FactCheck.OrgMonitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases.
Policy Actors
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White House - IssuesLink to White House/President's stand on policy issues.
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U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Policy AreasExplore how HUD's efforts influence key policy areas.
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Congress.govProvides access to legislative information, including the full text of the Congressional Record, a directory of congressional committees and members of Congress, the weekly floor schedule for the House, and a schedule of daily committee hearings.
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ProQuest CongressionalComprehensive source of current and historical U.S. Congressional material, including bills, testimony, reports, documents, selected prints, the Congressional Record, the U.S. Code, Federal Register, and the Code of Federal Regulations.
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National Conference of State LegislaturesFind state policies by issue area.
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Interest GroupsListing of some major U.S. interest groups by issue area from Vote Smart.
Find Scholarly Articles
General & Public Policy databases
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Academic Search PremierFind information on academic areas of business, social sciences, humanities, general academic, general science, education and multi-cultural topics; resource provides access to major popular and scholarly journals with many full-text articles.
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Google ScholarEnables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.
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PAIS IndexA bibliographic index to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general. Includes full-text articles.
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Web of Science (ISI)Opens to search the Core Collection which includes Science; Social Sciences; Arts & Humanities; Conference Proceedings; Book; and Emerging Sources Citation Indexes; Current Chemical Reactions; Index Chemicus. Provides access to BIOSIS, Current Contents Connect, Data Citation Index, Derwent Innovations Index, KCI Korean Citations Index, Russian Citation Index, SciELO, and Zoological Record. An All Databases search option is available.
Web of Science Training Materials
Subject specific databases
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ProQuest Political Science DatabasePolitical science and international relations journals, dissertations and working papers on topics such as comparative politics, political economy, international development, and environmental policy.
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Sociological AbstractsDatabase covering over 2500 journals in sociology, both theoretical and applied, and related disciplines including anthropology, economics, education, medicine, community development, philosophy, demography, political science, and social psychology. Articles in 30 different languages from about 55 countries.
Example "subject heading" catalog searchesFind Newspaper articles
Evaluate news stories
- Finding News Stories guide
- Checking the Facts guide
- Fact Check - Nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that monitors the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players.
- Snopes - Site that attempts to dispel urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.
- Politifact - Fact check for U.S. politics
Find news stories
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America's NewsAmerica's News is the most comprehensive U.S.newspaper resource available. It provides information on people, issues, and events in the local area or around the country. Updated daily, America's Newspapers offers tens of millions of current and archived full-text articles from newspapers nationwide in a single, fully searchable online database. It includes the complete electronic editions of 827 newspapers - with 75% of these sources not available in any other library database.
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New York Times Academic Pass (Students Only)All UNC Chapel Hill students now have full, year-round access to The New York Times, including smartphone, tablet, and browser access, thanks to a sponsorship from the University Library. For app downloads, visit NYTimes.com/mobile.
Access does not include e-reader editions, Premium Crosswords or The New York Times Crosswords apps. Pass users receive access to the New York Times archives, including five free articles from 1923 through 1980, per day; archive articles outside that date range are not subject to that limit. Digital access is available only during the time that our New York Times Site License is active.
Note: Students must click on "Create Account" and follow the instructions. To be eligible, you must register using your @live.unc.edu email account. Please allow up to a week for your registration to be processed.
Please consult https://guides.lib.unc.edu/nyt-academic-pass for additional information on using this resource.
City & Regional Planning Librarian
Find Statistics
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Statistical Abstract of the United StatesAn authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic conditions of the United States.
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PolicyMapAn online data and mapping tool that enables government, commercial, non-profit and academic institutions to access data about communities and markets across the US. Use it for research, market studies, business planning, site selection, grant applications and impact analysis.
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Social ExplorerProvides web-based access to United States Census data from 1790 to the present, and to other U.S. and international data, with the ability to make tables and interactive maps easily or export data for analysis. Data include the most commonly used variables and geographies.
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U.S. Census Bureau topicsContains links to statistics on a variety of topics, including housing, living arrangements, and economics.
Public opinion
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Roper Center's iPollOffers extensive database of opinion poll datasets. Roper’s iPOLL allows searching at the question level. The Center archives national opinion polls back to 1935, both U.S. and some international polls. Holdings include survey results data from academic, commercial and media survey organizations such as Gallup, Harris Interactive, Pew Research Associates, ABC, CBS, Wall Street Journal and many more. Many datasets are available for instant download in ASCII or SPSS format. Datasets not available for immediate download may be requested from the Center to be queued for digitization.
NOTE: First time users to NEW Roper iPoll need to self-register for access at login. Your credentials from Classic iPOLL will NOT work without new registration as of 8/14/2020. Classic iPOLL will no longer be updated after Sept 1, 2020.
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Polling the NationsAn online database of public opinion polls containing the full text of 600,000+ questions and responses, from 18,000+ surveys and 1,700+ polling organizations, conducted from 1986 through the present in the United States and more than 100 other countries around the world. The database covers over 4,000 subjects, from social and political concerns to economic issues. Information is gathered from professional polling organizations, television networks, universities, newspapers, businesses and associations.
Writing Resources
Guides to writing a policy brief
Policy Briefs – UNC Writing Center
Policy Brief One Pager– Duke University's Sanford School
Writing a Policy Memo – USC Libraries
Writing Policy Briefs – The Women’s and Children’s Health Policy Center
and Example Policy Briefs
- Last Updated: Jul 20, 2021 9:13 AM
- URL: https://guides.lib.unc.edu/plan769
