Research Librarian
Background Reading
Articles and books can provide overviews and help you understand the context around your policy issue. Try searching in one of these databases:
- Political Science Database (ProQuest) (1985 to present) This link opens in a new windowJournal articles from political science and international relations
- Social Science Database (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowJournal articles, reports, and other materials covering political science, social science, and other fields
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowJournal articles from across multiple disciplines, including social science, Asian studies, political science
- Bibliography of Asian Studies (1973 to present) This link opens in a new windowArticles and books in Asian studies, including social science
- CiNii Research This link opens in a new windowA free database with abstracts and limited full text from academic journals, books, and dissertations, as well as entries for research data sets. Formerly known as CiNii Articles, CiNii Books, and CiNii Dissertations.
- China Academic Journals (1994 to present) This link opens in a new windowFull-text articles from 7,200 journals in mainland China, including core journals and specialty journals. Amherst has a full-text subscription to the Humanities portion. Chinese interface
Tip for China Academic Journals/CNKI: If you're not able to download an article, try searching for the article in Google Scholar. If this doesn't provide access, you can request articles from the Library Request Service with the citation information from the database. It's helpful if you can include things like the journal title, article title, and author names in Chinese and in English if both are available.
More Specific Subjects
- EconLit with Full Text (1969 to present) This link opens in a new windowAcademic articles in economics
- HeinOnline This link opens in a new windowFull-text legal materials back to volume 1, historic English law and more.
- PubMed (1966 to present) This link opens in a new windowMedical literature, including COVID-19 related policy analysis
- Agricultural & Environmental Science Database (ProQuest) (1960 to present) This link opens in a new windowAcademic articles and reports about agriculture and the environment, including pollution and food safety
- GreenFILE This link opens in a new windowAcademic articles and reports about agriculture and the environment, including pollution issues and food safety
Subject Terms
You can also search by Subject Terms in Discover -- this brings up works that are tagged with specific subject labels. Use the drop-down and select Subject Keywords to search for these tags.
Subject Terms you could try:
China -- Population policy
Reproductive health services -- China
Water -- Pollution -- China
Women’s rights -- China
Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (China) -- Ethnic relations
Uighur (Turkic people) -- Violence against -- China -- Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu
Critical Questions for Sources
- Who produced this information? What are their credentials or associations?
- What audiences was this produced for? For what purposes?
- When was this information produced? How might this affect its relevance?
- What's the context of this information?
- What limitations might this information have? What strengths?