Ask us!

Social Policy and Politics - HMNS 207 - Gutshall-Seidman

Evaluating a Policy

You will probably need to look at several different sources to evaluate the policy you selected. As you read, watch for clues about where else to go for more information. From one source, follow links to additional sources in order to go beyond the top results in a Google search. Watch for clues about who opposes the policy and search for more information about that group/organization and their statements on the policy.

Google Advanced Search

Conduct your normal Google search, then select the Settings option, and Advanced Search. Look for the option to narrow your results by site or domain and enter .org. This will retrieve only sites that have a .org url, limiting your search to mostly recognized organizations (although you should still evaluate these sites for credibility, accuracy, and bias).

DuckDuckGo

Instead of Google, try this search engine which does not track your search history. You may find sites that Google would not present to you because they are counter to your normal search habits or preferences.

DuckDuckGo.com

Places to search for information to help you evaluate a policy:

(Hein Online also contains evaluative documents)

Pew Research Center
A nonpartisan organization that conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, and other data-driven studies to inform the American public about issues, attitudes and trends shaping our society.
CQ Roll Call
Source for analysis of the politics of legislation, this site focuses on articles related to Congress's opinions and actions.

Proquest Central This link opens in a new window
Choose "Publications" from the top menu and search for 'policy review' or 'law review' to find and search within relevant journals; or narrow by relevant "Source Type."
Subjects include business, health and medical, social sciences, arts and humanities, education, science and technology, and religion. The collection includes thousands of full-text scholarly journals, books, newspapers, magazines, conference papers and proceedings, dissertations and theses, working papers, blogs, podcasts, websites, tables, trade journals, wire feeds, video and audio resources. Some articles have citation information only.
Academic Search Premier This link opens in a new window
Choose "Publications" from the top menu and search for 'policy' or 'law review' to find and search within relevant journals; or narrow by "Publication" after you search.
Subjects include major science disciplines such as biology, chemistry, and physics as well as engineering, psychology, religion and philosophy. It provides access to full text content for many scholarly journals, citations/abstracts for more than 1,000 titles and access to more than 60,000 videos from the Associated Press.
Proquest Newsstand (US Newsstream) This link opens in a new window
Use this database to find news articles from key national and regional sources, including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Newsday, and Chicago Tribune.
This is a ProQuest database entitled U.S. Newsstream that enables users to search current U.S. news content, as well as archives that stretch back into the 1980s. It features top newspapers, wires, broadcast transcripts, blogs, and news sites in full-text format. It provides key national and regional news sources from the U.S. and includes exclusive and preferred access to top titles, All titles are cross searchable on the ProQuest platform.
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
A library database for historical or background information on an issue.
If you receive a "Connection refused by search.credoreference.com, please try again later" error message, please refresh your browswer to continue to Credo Reference.To avoid seeing this error, it is best to clear your browser's cache.
CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
Written for the general public, this library database provides overview reports on social issues. Skim the reports for data and helpful background information but pay closer attention to the bibliography of sources at the end, which will point you to additional information.
Full-length articles include an overview, historical background, chronology, pro/con feature, plus resources for additional research. Graphics, photos and short "sidebar" features round out the reports. This is a great resource for topic selection and obtaining applicable terms or key words to use when performing further research.