To fully research your seminar paper, you may need to find information outside of the usual law sources, including statistics, policy positions, mental health guidelines, and other information not found on Westlaw, Lexis Advance, or Bloomberg Law. Often times, advocacy groups such as the ones mentioned throughout this LibGuide will have helpful materials. Another place you can find non-law materials are in other Vanderbilt University Databases. This page collects some resources that may be helpful when doing this type of research.
Extensive selection of statistics for the United States, with selected data for regions, divisions, states, metropolitan areas, cities, and foreign countries from reports and records of government and private agencies.
International literature in the social sciences: politics, sociology, social services, anthropology, criminology and education. IBSS, PAIS and Sociological Abstracts. Abstracts, indexing and full text of articles, books, chapters, dissertations, working papers.
• Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts (ASSIA)
• Criminal Justice Database
• Education Database
• ERIC
• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)
• Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)
• PAIS Index
• Political Science Database
• PTSDpubs
• Social Science Database
• Social Services Abstracts
• Sociological Abstracts
• Sociology Database
• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
We have access to many non-legal databases through other Vanderbilt University libraries. To see the complete list of databases we have access to, go to the Vanderbilt University Libraries Databases page. If you are accessing these databases from off-campus you may be prompted to log-in using your VUNetID.
Some databases that might be particularly helpful:
Coverage of the most important issues of the day, written by experienced journalists, footnoted and professionally fact-checked. Articles include an overview, historical background, chronology, pro/con feature, and resources for additional research.
Pro and con articles on important social, political, and economic issues. Reference articles that provide context, magazines, newspapers, primary source documents, government and organizational statistics, and links.
