Legal and political science dictionaries can be important tools in helping you understand specific terms that you may run across in legal code, court decisions, or secondary sources.
They can also be helpful in defining and narrowing your research topic.
Your first step in conducting research will be to read basic background information from political science reference sources.
This will help you increase your familiarity with the topic, but it will also allow you to identify and list key concepts, terms, social theories, culture groups, places, and names related to your topic in preparation for searching for information on it.
As you do this reading, be sure to write down these key terms (to be used in searching later) and note any secondary that may be useful. Also note any particular documentary sources (such as court decisions) or research methods that could be useful for your fieldwork.
Listed below are several key print reference sources in political science.
For additional reference materials, search the library catalog, or browse the subject lists of SAGE Reference Online and Credo Reference.
