Where do I find information for my papers?

There is lots of information 'out there'. It may be good to have a quick initial browse through Google or the Wikipedia, but for academic purposes, this is not the right route. To avoid drowning in an overload of information, you need to formulate specific questions. Know what you are looking for. Also, you need to make sure your sources are reliable, so you need to know how to access the scientific literature.

If you are looking for scientific sources on your topic, whether empirical analyses, data, or theoretical resources, here are some good places to start:

1. Picarta

2. Google Scholar

Google's search engine for scholarly publications. Also connect to scientific journals through SFX, but only with a university internet connection.

3. Web of Science

It may not sound grand or scientific, but a quick and useful way look for information is to find one really perfect source and see what it links to. You 'snowball' information. It is easy to snowball back in time: you just look up the interesting sources in the reference list of that perfect article you found. You can also look forward in time, by using the Web of Science to see which articles cite the one you have found.

Web of Science also allows you to look with keywords, author names, or journal names, but the citation indexing is its unique feature. Also only accessible through university internet connections.

4. Statistical agencies

5. Other