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Political Science and Public Policy

A subject guide for the Department of Political Science / School of Public Policy

Types of periodical publications

Used to disseminate scholarly information that relates to a particular academic discipline. They are aimed at researchers and are often peer-reviewed, which means that articles are evaluated by experts in the field before publication to ensure the information in them is accurate and well presented. An example of an academic journal is Political Analysis.

Generally printed on glossy paper (but can also be available online), they are aimed at a more general audience than academic journals and can include opinions and news items too. An example of a magazine is Prospect.

Published on a daily basis, the focus of these is on news items. They can include articles on the theory or application of political science, but are wide in scope. An example of a newspaper is The Guardian

Usually published by a special group, learned society or professional organisation and aimed at people working in a specific industry. An example of a trade publication is Marketing Week.

Finding the full-text

Find IT@UCL logo

If you're using one of our databases to find journal articles, you might not be able to read the article within the database itself. If you see the Findit@UCL icon, click on it to link to the full-text

Sometimes you will see a link to the publisher's site. Unless the article is open access, you might find that you can't reach the full-text.

Clicking on the Findit@UCL link instead will link you to the full-text via UCL's subscription access, if available.

If you're using Google Scholar you can set up the Library Links feature so that it will display a findit@UCL link to help show you which articles are available via UCL subscriptions. 

Can't find full-text?

UCL has an amazing collection of e-resources, but no library can have full-text access to everything. If you identify a piece of information that would be beneficial to your research, the library will try and source a copy for you via the Inter Library Loans service.You can make a request by logging into UCL Explore and then clicking on the three dots 'show more' menu to access the Inter Library Loan Request form.