Reference Sources
Conspiracies and Secret Societies (2006)
An online encyclopedia on conspiracy theories. Lists of books, articles and websites are included at the end of each encyclopedia article. May be a useful source for locating references to primary source documents and non-scholarly material. The full text of the encyclopedia is available in EBSCOhost Points of View Reference Center.
Comprehensive, yet concise topic summary articles written by researchers, scholars and other subject matter experts.
Finding Scholarly Print and Electronic Books in Milne Library
Find e-books.
To search for e-books in Milne Library, click on the Search tab on the library’s home page. Then select Advanced Search. Then click on Sign in and login using your SUNY Oneonta username and password. Once signed in, select Library Catalog and change Material Type from All items to Books. Enter search terms and click on SEARCH.
Limit your search results to Available online (e-books).
Finding Scholarly Journal Articles
Sociology Databases
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SocINDEX with Full TextProvides full-text for over 850 journals as well as abstracts for about 1,300 "core" coverage journals dating as far back as 1895. In addition, this database provides indexing from more than 450 "priority" coverage journals and about 2,000 "selective" coverage journals. Contains extensive indexing for books/monographs (with about 850 available full-text), conference papers, and other non-periodical content sources. Also includes searchable cited references.
General Databases with Sociology Sources
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Academic Search CompleteFull text for about 8,500 periodicals including over 7,300 peer-reviewed journals across most areas of academic study as well as indexing and abstracts for more than 12,500 magazines and journals. Coverage is from 1887 to the present.
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JSTORProvides access to the full-text of several scholarly journals including 152 political science titles and 38 public policy and administration titles. The objective of JSTOR is to provide all issues back to Volume 1, Issue 1 for all journals. (Due to copyright restrictions, the most recent 3-5 years are unavailable.)
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Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson)This full-text resource provides access to a wide assortment of the most important English-language social science journals. Social Sciences Full Text includes full-text articles from hundreds of journals, covering the latest concepts, theories and methods from both applied and theoretical aspects of the social sciences. Content Includes: Full-text articles from 360 journals Full-text content dating as far back as 1972 High-quality indexing for more than 750 periodicals, over 510 of which are peer-reviewed.
Finding a Copy of a Periodical Article from a Database
Locating the full text of the article in electronic form
Full text articles available directly in databases are indicated by HTML Full Text or PDF Full Text. Full text articles available with the wording such as Linked Full Text are available in another database. Clicking on the link will connect either to the full text article or the other database.
Requesting an article on interlibrary loan
If you find an article from a periodical that is not available at Milne Library, you can request the article using the library’s interlibrary loan service. Ask a librarian for help.
Finding an article in a specific journal
- Use the Journals tab on the library home page.
- Enter the title of the journal or magazine, for example, Critical Sociology, in the search box.
- Look for the journal title in the results list.
- Online journals are available online through the link, Available Online.
- To obtain an online copy of an article, click on the Available Online link and go to the section, Full text availability, and click on an appropriate database.
- Link to the correct issue of the periodical (note the year, issue, volume number, and pages numbers of the article).
Finding Primary Source Documents
Legal Databases
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Hein OnlineHeinOnline is a premier online database containing more than 150 million pages and 160,000 titles of legal history and government documents in a fully searchable, image-based format. HeinOnline bridges the gap in historical research by providing comprehensive coverage from inception of more than 2,400 law-related periodicals. In addition to its vast collection of law journals, HeinOnline contains the entire Congressional Record, Federal Register, and Code of Federal Regulations, complete coverage of the U.S. Reports back to 1754, and entire databases dedicated to treaties, constitutions, case law, world trials, classic treatises, international trade, foreign relations, U.S. Presidents, and much more.
Can be used for course content: Law review articles and much more; permanent links. -
Nexis Uni (LexisNexis)Offers more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790 across all content types.
Government Documents Websites
Search for bills, their status, and legislation from current House and Senate activity back to the 103rd Congress.
Provides free online access to official publications from all three branches of the Federal Government.
"A gateway to 47 million pages of government science information."
“Our mission is to create and organize timely, needed government information and services and make them accessible anytime, anywhere, via your channel of choice.”
Newspaper and Magazine Databases
Nation Archive Premium Edition
Full text/full image version of The Nation, "a dissenting, independent, trouble-making, idea launching journal of critical opinion". Coverage is from 1865 to the present.
Offers more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis, including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790 across all content types.
Includes over 850 full-text U.S. and international newspapers as well as over 800,000 television and radio news transcripts.
Finding Polling/Survey Data
Periodical that provides Gallup Poll News Service data and analysis. The periodical is located in the database Business Source Complete.
Polling the Nations is a critically acclaimed online database of public opinion polls containing the full text of more than 700,000 questions and responses from more than 18,000 surveys and 1,700 polling organizations, conducted from 1986 through the present in the United States and more than 100 other countries around the world.
Polling Data Specific to Conspiracy Theories
The Economist/YouGov Poll (December 17 - 20, 2016 - 1376 US Adults)
Questions 46-54 relate to conspiracy theories
Public Policy Polling: Conspiracies (April 2013)
PPP’s conspiracy-theory questions find that Republicans are more likely than Democrats to believe various government-related conspiracy theories.
Public Policy Polling: Conspiracies (Oct 2013)
Additional polling questions regarding conspiracy theory belief in the U.S.
Report on 2019 poll which covers select current conspiracies (Epstein, QANON) with links to full poll results.
Selected Internet Sites
Oyez (https://www.oyez.org/)
Oyez (pronounced OH-yay)—a free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII), Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law—is a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone. It is the most complete and authoritative source for all of the Court’s audio since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. Oyez offers transcript-synchronized and searchable audio, plain-English case summaries, illustrated decision information, and full-text Supreme Court opinions (through Justia). Oyez also provides detailed information on every justice throughout the Court’s history and offers a panoramic tour of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of several justices.
Rand Corporation (https://www.rand.org/)
Southern Poverty Law Center (https://www.splcenter.org/)
Locating primary sources/non-scholarly material using an Internet search engine
To begin a search for non-scholarly information on your topic using Google, Bing or another Internet search engine, use terms such as the words describing the conspiracy theory (e.g. vaccines cause autism, 9/11 cover-up, alien abduction) individual(s) and/or organization(s) who proliferate the conspiracy (e.g. Jenny McCarthy, Andrew Wakefield, Dylan Avery).
michelle.hendley@oneonta.edu
Revised: September 15, 2020