Why Use Them?
Research projects often require you to look close up at a body of research produced by scholars in a particular field.
This research is typically collected, codified, and made 
findable in a tool called a subject database.
Every academic discipline has at least one subject database that's considered the disciplinary gold standard -- a reliable, (relatively) comprehensive, and accurate record of the books that scholars are publishing, and the ideas they're debating and discussing in important and influential journals.
Databases are like lenses: they change what you see and how you see it -- and they offer you easy and efficient ways to bring your questions into sharper focus.
Top Picks
Subject-Specific Databases To Try
- Especially useful if you are writing on the Santa Clara topic, as the body of scholarship directly on point is much smaller. Full-text searching (which Scholar allows) might help you turn up an argumentative "nugget" or a source lead you'd otherwise have come across. In general, those writing on Santa Clara may have better luck thinking broadly about the broader negotiation tactic you are investigating or the outcome you are evaluating and demonstrating wny and how a scholar's argument applies to your particular instance (Santa Clara). If you go the broad-to-applied route, you'll probably also find ample resources in HOLLIS or one of the databases listed below.
- The first and still most widely known full-text journal database, trusted for its content. JSTOR covers core scholarly journals in 75 fields.
- The premier database for legal information and scholarship, U.S. and worldwide
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
- The gold standard for scholarship on politics, political philosophy, theory, political psychology, and more.
- The key resource for scholarship on world history (excluding the U.S. and Canada), 1450-present
