PPY 780: Capstone I: Defining the Problem: Library Guides

One of the easiest ways to find government information is via Google: After you type in your keywords, then type: site:.gov

This will narrow your search to only federal, state, and local government resources.

For example, you could try the following keyword searches:

• "crime statistics" site:.gov
• homeless veterans site:.gov

You can use Google to find statistics published by federal, state, and local agencies by adding site:.gov to your keywords, such as:

• "crime statistics" site:.gov
• "teen pregnancy statistics and Nevada site:.gov

• Guides & Handouts for ProQuest Congressional & Executive Branch Documents

  Use this guide for information on how to search in the Congressional interface, and for links to information on the digital collections.

• Video: Short ProQuest Congressional Tutorial

• Nevada Electronic Legislative Information System (NELIS): Information about the current session as well as past sessions, search for your representatives, and more.

• Videos of Archived Meetings--NV Legislature

• Nevada State Assembly

• Nevada State Senate

• Nevada Law Library

  Find the Nevada Revised Statutes, Supreme Court decisions, and the Nevada Constitution.

• National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL)

  Association for state legislators that provides interesting reports and resources on a wide variety of issues (such as education, health, etc.)

• Glossary of Legislative Terms (NCSL)

A think tank or policy institute is a research institute which performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Although many think tanks claim to be neutral, some may be considered to have a more conservative or a more liberal agenda.  For example, the Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank and the Heritage Foundation is considered to be conservative. Be sure to examine the "About the Organization page, in addition to outside sources to investigate the organization's agenda and their political views. 

• APA Overview: PPT (updated for 7th Edition), including potentially tricky examples such as book chapters and secondary citations.
• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) - APA Style Guide: This is a dependable site for APA questions. Look for their Sample Paper, too.

Other Resources:

• APA Style and Grammar Guidelines

  From APA: Detailed instructions and examples from the 7th edition

• Tutorial: Basics of Seventh Edition APA Style

  from APA

• Free DOI Lookup Tool

  Provides a DOI for an article citation when one is available.

• Is it Plagiarism Yet? (Purdue OWL)

  Explains when to give credit to another person for their intellectual work (and how to do it correctly). Look for the "Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing" section on the left for examples of each.