PLCY 698: Senior Capstone in Public Policy: Home

Welcome

This guide is designed to help you with your coursework for PLCY698: Senior Capstone in Public Policy. Links provided in this guide will help you discover information useful for selecting and understanding your study area, as well as information for displaying your findings. The guide is divided into several sections:

Research & Poster Design: Provides resources for developing your research and links to Library Data Services and The Odum Institute. Also includes links about poster design and data visualization.
Sources of Data: Provides links to resources for finding US Census data, municipal and county data, and neighborhood characterization data.
Online Mapping Tools: Access a variety of online mapping and visualization tools. See example projects using these tools.
Campus Resources: Contains links to UNC-CH campus resources.
Articles & Reports (below): Find scholarly and Think Tank articles to support your project and writing for the course.

Articles & Reports

E-Research by Discipline
Select a subject area from this list to find the top resources for each discipline.

Academic Search Premier
Find 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.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Indexing, 1975-present; Full-text, 1975-present
Agricultural & Environmental Science Database
- Articles plus searchable charts, figures, graphs, maps, photographs and tables representing all major environment topics
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Business Source Premier
Covers scholarly articles for all business subjects: marketing, management, economics, finance, accounting, international business, and more. Also includes financial data, MarketLine company profiles, Harvard Business Review articles, SWOT analyses, and more.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Varies widely.
Environment Complete
Journals on topics including agriculture, renewable energy sources, natural resources, marine & freshwater science, geography, pollution & waste management, environmental technology, urban planning, and more.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
ERIC
Produced by the Educational Resource Information Center, ERIC provides indexing and abstracting for journal and report literature (1966 to the present) in education and related disciplines.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: 1966-present
Google Think Tank Search Engine
Customized Google search of 1200+ 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.
Access: No restrictions.
HeinOnline
An ever-expanding database that specializes in offering original PDF copies of full-runs of legal collections. It includes: most major legal periodicals, federal and state statutes, court decisions, attorney general reports and opinions, federal legislative history materials, treaties, foreign & international law material, and numerous specialized legal collections. The text of collections are fully searchable and there are tools to browse or find items by citation.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: Varies.
Nexis Uni
Covers general, regional, and international news, company and financial information, legal information (including law reviews, case law and legal rulings), and other topics such as biographical information. Many files are full-text.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
PAIS Index
A bibliographic index to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general. Includes full-text articles.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: 1915 - Present
ProQuest Criminal Justice Database
Research on crime, its causes and impacts, legal and social implications, as well as litigation and crime trends.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: 1981-current
ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global
Indexes US dissertations from 1861 with full text available from 1997; masters theses covered selectively including some full text.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: 1861 to present
PubMed
Database of biomedical literature from the National Library of Medicine covering journal articles about medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, biology and public health from 1950 to the present; multiple mobile apps available, provides access to MEDLINE, etc. Includes links to full text of UNC-CH's electronic journal subscriptions.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: 1957-present
Social Services Abstracts
Social Services Abstracts indexes and abstracts current journals and other periodicals in the disciplines of social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.

Coverage: 1980-Present
Sociological Abstracts
Database 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.
Access: Off Campus Access is available for: UNC-Chapel Hill students, faculty, and staff; UNC Hospitals employees; UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated AHEC users.
Coverage: 1963-present

Off-campus research support

If you are hitting a paywall when trying to read an article...

Try using our link builder. This adds a proxy to the URL that will prompt you for your onyen and password. https://library.unc.edu/support/reserves/link-builder/
Try clearing the cache in the web browser you are using. Close the browser completely and then open it back up to try the URL again.
Send an email to Kristan Shawgo at shawgo@email.unc.edu or chat with a librarian at https://library.unc.edu/ask

Other helpful tips...

Use the Google Scholar link from the library's homepage (https://library.unc.edu/find/googlescholar) or change your Google Scholar settings to connect you with UNC-CH University Libraries resources.
Contact our interlibrary loan services team if you need access to an article or print book that we don't have. (https://illiad.lib.unc.edu/logon/)

UNC Catalog Search

Citing

Not sure which citation management system to use? Compare them!

Library contacts

Please contact Phil McDaniel (pmmcdani@email.unc.edu) or Kristan Shawgo (shawgo@email.unc.edu) to set up a library consultation or to ask a research/data-related question. Our full contact details are included below. We are happy to meet with individuals or groups. If we don't have the expertise your team needs, we will introduce you to one of our librarians who specializes in the academic subject areas and/or technical skills that will best support your project.