Reference Sources:

• The Oxford handbook of American elections and political behavior
• The Oxford handbook of American political parties and interest groups
• Elections A to Z
• Creating political equality : American elections as a public good
• America's uneven democracy : race, turnout, and representation in city politics
• Election day : a documentary history

Suggested Searchworks subject terms related to Politics and Elections:

• United States Politics and government 21st Century
• Tea Party Movement
• Political parties United States
• Political Culture United States
• Presidents United States Election
• Vice-Presidents United States
• Voting United States

Note: you can replace another country for United States and get information unique to that country. or you can omit the country from the search, and get books on elections or politics in general.

Suggested Databases and E-journals for “Politics and/or Elections” topics:

• PAIS International:Scholarly articles on international public policy and politics
• Communication and Mass Media Complete: From EBSCO Host, you can search together with Academic Search Premier by selecting an additional Database. This database is great for articles on the rhetoric of candidates and the impact of media on public perception of canditates
• Political Science
• Newsbank News File and Access World News: Great source for news from newspapers, television, radio, and websites, going back to the 1980s to current news
• Polling Databases:
• Polling the Nations: A database of polls taken on a variety of subjects all over the world. Each record in the database consists of one poll question and the participants' responses. Records are indexed by subject matter, publication year, general and specific location, and survey method.
• IPoll Databank: comprehensive, up-to-date source for US nationwide public opinion. A full-text retrieval system, the iPoll online database is organized at the question level, providing the tools to sift through nearly a half million questions asked on national public opinion surveys, 1935 to present. Surveys archived in the Roper Catalog were originally gathered by academic, commercial and media survey organizations such as Gallup Organization, Harris Interactive, Pew Research Associates, and many more.
• America History and Life: for any historical topic - good for getting historical perspective on a political person or issue, or any historic event.
• Historical Abstracts: same as above but provides perspective outside the Americas
• Film and Television Literature: For articles on coverage of Elections and Campaigns on televisions and in films: many are articles from Variety and Hollywood Reporter (you will find fulltext by using the "Find it at Stanford" link), but you can limit to Academic Resources, and find scholarly articles from journals like Popular Communication; Television and News Media; Journal of Popular Film & Television; Political Communication; Gender Studies; Media Psychology; Film International, and more

For presidential speeches, check these news databases (available to Stanford users):

• Vanderbilt University Television Archives
• CQ Voting and Elections Collection
• National Journal
• Facts on File News Service Note the links for 2012 Election Guide and Presidential Election Highlights
  .
• Lexis Nexis (has transcripts of radio and television programs)

Political Journals and Magazines

• Presidential Studies Quarterly
• The Nation: a searchable archive of all issues from the first in 1865 to today

Politics and Election websites:

• US elections 2012: from the Guardian - a foreign (UK) perspective on the US elections
• PolitiFact.com
  This website was created "to help voters separate fact from falsehood
  in the 2008 presidential campaign." Now up-to-date to the 2012 election. Journalists and researchers from the [St. Petersburg] Times and CQ [Congressional Quarterly] will fact-check the accuracy of speeches, TV ads, interviews and other campaign communications." Searchable; or browse the site's "Truth-O-Meter" by candidate, subject, political party, and other factors. Includes related articles and in-depth features.
• Voter Turnout:
  Collection of research and commentary on voter turnout and election results. Topics include evangelical voters, the youth vote, the myth of a toss-up election, how and when experience in a president counts, and voter mobilization. From the Brookings Institution.
• New Yorker Magazine coverage of the 2012 campaign: New Yorker Magazine articles, blogs, cartoons, and podcasts on the 2008 and 2012 campaigns.
• FiveThirtyEight.com
  Now part of the New York Times Politics Website -compiles and presents up-to-the minute changes in an aggregate of polls and news/editorial reports
• MSNBC Politics
• MSNBC coverage of the 2012 primaries
• Jon Stewart Daily Show segments on "Indecision 2012"
• Stephen Colbert: Colbert Report segments "Indecision 2012"
• Comedy Central's Indecision 2012 website
• Commission on Presidential Debates: historic debate transcripts - including the Kennedy Nixon debates of 1960
• The Kennedy-Nixon Presidential Debates, 1960, from the Internet Archive
• History of Televised Presidential Debates (1960-2000)
• American Rhetoric: Database of and index to 5000+ full text, audio and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two.

Reference articles from our online Reference Resources:

• Legal Reasoning (Article and Bibliography from the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.
• Search Results for "legal rhetoric" in the International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
• Search Results for Reference Books in the Library and Online from Reference Universe: Try using this resource to search for keyword: Geneva Convention

Books on Legal Rhetoric

• Introduction to classical legal rhetoric : a lost heritage
• Rhetoric and the rule of law : a theory of legal reasoning
• Comparative legal linguistics [electronic resource]

Sample search terms in Searchworks:

• Courtroom Speeches
• Law Language
• Semantics (Law)
• Law Interpretation and Construction (notice variety of language and religious perspectives)

Current Events, Hot Topics and Debate Issues

• Facts on File: good overview of events, Issues and Controversies on Hot Topics, like treatment of detainees; Human Rights; Healthcare Reform; Separation of Church and State in US; Gun Control; International Criminal Court; Civil Liberties on War on Terror; Right to Die; Detainees' Rights, etc.
• The debatabase book [electronic resource] : a must-have guide for successful debate
• Publications for National Debaters: Finding Both Sides of an Issue

Recommended Law databases - United States:

• Congressional Publications (Proquest): United States government: includes Legislative Histories, Congressional Hearings, Congressional Record, House and Senate Reports, and more
• Lexis Nexis Academic (Select US Legal): includes US Federal and State Cases; Supreme Court Cases; Law Reviews; International
• HeinOnline
• Congressional Research Service (CRS) - a GREAT resource for review papers on subjects that congressional committee members might want for background on a topic that may be relevant to a legislative topic - for example, music piracy, or vigilantism, or health care or juvenile crime or media violence. Also available through Lexis Nexis Academic
• U.S. Supreme Court records and briefs, 1832-1978 + The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises 1800-1926 + The Making of Modern Law: Trials 1600-1926
• American Rhetoric: Database of and index to 5000+ full text, audio and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two.

Recommended Law databases - International:

• Legal Information Institute
• Yearbook of the United Nations

Recommended Websites:

• Official site of the Supreme Court of the U.S.:Provides general information, opinions, term orders, argument calendar, schedules, court rules, bar admission forms and instructions, case-handling guides, special notices, biographies of current and past justices, architectural details, and press releases. Includes a search engine for finding documents.
• Supreme Court Collection : Search this site for U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Includes an archive of decisions going back to 1990 (searchable by topic, justice, and party), highlights of the present term, a glossary, Supreme Court rules, and more. From the Legal Information Institute (LII) at Cornell Law School.
• Oyez: U.S. Supreme Court Case Summaries, Oral Arguments & Multimedia: The Oyez Project is a multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States and its work. It aims to be a complete and authoritative source for all audio recorded in the Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. The Project also provides authoritative information on all justices and offers a virtual reality 'tour' of portions of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of some of the justices.