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Reference Books
Encyclopedias and other reference books are great ways to find background information, bibliographies of recommended books, and search terms for database searching. Here is a small sample of what you can find in the 2nd floor Reference area:
Public Governanace Ref. JF1351 .P8213 2007
CQ Almanac Ref. JK1 .C66
Safire's Political Dictionary Ref. JK9 .S2 2008
Guide to the Presidency Ref. JK516 .G83 2008
Official Congressional Directory Ref. JK1011 .A32
CQ's Politics in America Ref. JK1012 .C63
Guide to Congress Ref. JK1021 .C565
Congress and the Nation Ref. JK1021 .C62
The Book of the States Ref. JK2403 .B6
Greenwood Encyclopedia of International Relations Ref. JZ1160 .N65
Encyclopedia of the American Constitution Ref. KF4548 .E53
Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court Ref. KF8742 .W567
Encyclopedia of the United Nations Ref. KZ4968 .O84 2003
Online Reference Sources
Off-Campus Access
You can gain off-campus access to the electronic resources (also called databases or journal collections) by clicking on the name of the database you’d like to access, and then logging in using your Valpo e-mail username and password.
If you have problems with this service, contact IT at 464-5678.
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Literature Review vs. Annotated Bibliography
According to the American Psychological Society:
Literature reviews...are critical evaluations of material that has already been published. By organizing, integrating, and evaluating previously published material, authors of literature reviews consider the progress of research toward clarifying a problem. In a sense, literature reviews are tutorials, in that authors
- define and clarify the problem;
- summarize previous investigations to inform the reader of the state of research;
- identify relations, contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the literature; and
- suggest the next step or steps in solving the problem.
from the Publication Manual of the APA, 6th ed., October 2009
A thorough definition of literature review can be found in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods Volume 2, pages 577-579, which is in our reference collection: H62.L456 2004 vol. 2. Also in our reference collection: Doing a Literature Search by Chris Hart (H62.H2567 2001) which may help in the entire process.
Some good examples of literature reviews can be found in the following links:
Literature Review Handout from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This link provides a good introduction to literature reviews as well as prewriting and writing strategies.
St. Mary's University of Minnesota has an excellent list of online resources about literature reviews. If one does not make sense, another should!
An annotated bibliography is, according to the Valpo's Library Research Strategy:
This type of bibliography consists of a list of citations to books, articles, documents, and other resources, with each citation followed by a brief, descriptive evaluation of the resource cited. The annotations tell your reading audience what the resource is about, the degree of quality/authority the resource possesses, and why you have chosen it for inclusion. Annotations usually vary from 100-150 words.
Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) has some great examples of annotated bibliographies; it may be easier to grasp the difference between the two by understanding them both.
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