Research Guides: Development Practice Research Guide: Finding Articles, Grey Literature & Newspapers

Finding Academic Articles in Databases

To find relevant academic, peer-reviewed articles, you'll want to go to to a database. See our Databases page for a list of databases. The library has over 1000 databases to choose from.

A good databases to start with for Development Studies is PAIS:

Public Affairs Information Service Index (PAIS) This link opens in a new window
Indexes books, periodicals and selected local, state, national, and international government documents in the areas of public policy, social policy and the social sciences from 1915 onward.

Other key databases to do searches in are:

These provide citations and/or full text of journal articles, books, and other materials.

Google Scholar searches specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Search for books and articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, pre-print repositories and universities, and more. To add a "Find It @ Emory" button, go to Library Links in the Settings menu, search for Emory, and click the "Find It @ Emory" box. NOTE: Unlike a library database, many sources found in Google Scholar require payment before providing full text; check library holdings of journal titles in Library Search or Interlibrary Loan before paying.

Some key social science journals come from the disciplines of Sociology and Anthropology.

SocINDEX with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Indexes journals, books, book chapters, book reviews, dissertations and conference papers in sociology and related disciplines.
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Covers the international literature of sociology, social work, and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences from 1952-present.
AnthroSource This link opens in a new window
Access full-text publications from the American Anthropological Association including journals, newsletters, bulletins, and monographs.
Anthropology Plus This link opens in a new window
Covers journal articles, edited books, and essays in anthropology, archeology, and related interdisciplinary research.

Some important Public Health databases:

CAB Direct This link opens in a new window
Produced by CABI, this search includes CAB Abstracts and Global Health databases. CAB Abstracts is for agriculture, veterinary science, food science, environmental science, and nutrition. Global Health covers international public health with publications in various languages and publication types, including grey literature, journals, and conferences.
Five (5) simultaneous users.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Produced by the National Library of Medicine, this biomedical database includes over 30 million citations and dates back to 1946.
These citations are from MEDLINE and additional life science journals. PubMed includes links to many sites providing full text articles and other related resources.

Grey Literature

Grey literature refers to materials and research produced by organizations like NGOs and think tanks that are outside of traditional academic publications like scholarly journal articles and books. These materials are not peer reviewed.

Policy Commons This link opens in a new window
For Access: Users must create an account on the platform to access content.

Policy Commons preserves and provides access to more curated policy reports and briefs, analyses, working papers, books, case studies, tables, charts, media, and statistical publications from policy organizations (NGOs, IGOs, foundations, government, think tanks, agencies, etc.) from around the world.
ELDIS Gateway to Development Information This link opens in a new window
Access resources for global development research. Includes reports, papers, case studies, policy briefings, and more. Includes selected materials for development practitioners, and wide ranging country profiles.
For help using this resource, contact Chris Palazzolo, Political Science and International Documents Librarian.
OECD iLibrary This link opens in a new window
Access the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development`s books, papers, studies, periodicals, and statistics.
UN iLibrary This link opens in a new window
The United Nations iLibrary is the first comprehensive global search, discovery, and viewing source for digital content created by the United Nations. The UN iLibrary currently consists of publications regarding human rights, climate change, economic and social development, international peace and security, international law, and public health.
The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) This link opens in a new window
The World Bank is the largest single source of development knowledge. The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) is The World Bank’s official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products.
WHOLIS This link opens in a new window
Indexes World Health Organization publications, including articles, journals, and technical documents.

Finding Newspapers

For finding specific newspaper databases related to Development Studies, good options are All Africa.com and Ethnic Newswatch:

All Africa.com This link opens in a new window
Current news from African media outlets, including newspapers, news agencies and publications across the African continent, and more.
Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Contains U. S. newspapers, magazines, and journals of ethnic, minority, and native presses. Searchable in English and Spanish, materials span from 1960 to the present.

To search through a broad list of newspapers, good bets are Newsbank Access World News, Factiva, and Press Display:

NewsBank Access World News This link opens in a new window
Coverage includes domestic newspapers, international newspapers, news wires, transcripts, and broadcasts, including 16 Georgia newspapers.
All titles are the full electronic version of record.
Factiva This link opens in a new window
Search a large collection of publications and websites in a variety of languages. Factiva.com is the exclusive archive of The Wall Street Journal.

Microforms -- Information Resources in an Itty Bitty Format

Woodruff Library has millions of pages of newspapers, government documents, manuscript and archival records, and other primary source collections in microformat. Microforms are a storage medium containing materials that are photographed at a greatly reduced size for ease of storage and preservation.

The most common types of microforms are microfilm, which resembles a pint-size movie reel; and microfiche, which looks like a large plastic index card. Our microform collections are listed in Library Search. They can be viewed, printed and scanned using special equipment located on Level 2.

It takes practice to search for and use microforms effectively - so ask for help!