The Sheridan Libraries

International Development (SAIS)

Core starting points for SAIS Women Lead projects

Note that the full International Development guide has useful resources for your projects. Take a look at the options to the left for sectors, data, etc. The home page has added Starting Points.

Catalyst - the JH Libraries Catalog
Search the Hopkins collections for books, articles, documents, digital media, etc.

ProQuest All Databases This link opens in a new window
100+ databases covering scholarly articles, dissertations, news, and more.

Gender-focused Databases
A list of resources with a focus on gender, including library databases and international organization sites.

Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Viewpoint This link opens in a new window
An excellent source for brief, high quality - and very current - country analysis reports. Click on "Geography" to search by country.

If your clients expect you to prepare an annotated bibliography, here are some guides. Annotated bibliographies consist of a list of citations, each followed by a brief descriptive / evaluative paragraph (the annotation) informing the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited.

Annotated Bibliographies (Online Writing Lab, Purdue Univ)
How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography (Cornell University)
How to Write an Annotated Bibliography (5 min. video via JH Libraries)

To browse examples of annotated bibliographies published as articles:

Connect to ProQuest Databases

Enter "annotated bibliography" in search box
Check the boxes next to "full text" and "scholarly journals"

Connect to JStor

Under "Item Type", select "Article" (to avoid reviews of book-length annotated bibliographies)

Try similar searches in other databases.

Evaluating Sources (aka The CRAAP Test)

Currency
Consider the date the source was published. Based on what you know of the field and the subject, is it current enough to still provide relevant information? Why or why not?

Relevance
How does this material contribute to your understanding of the problem/topic, or how is it useful to your research?

Authority
Is the material peer reviewed? If not, what makes you trust the information?
How do you know that the author is qualified to write on this topic?

Accuracy
What gaps or inconsistencies do you see in the research?
Do the sources and/or methods used seem reasonable based on the topic, population and setting?
What could have been done to make them stronger?

Purpose
Who/what audience is the article written for?
What, if any, bias can you determine from the research?

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Credit to the Meriam Library at CSU Chico for formulating the CRAAP test (PDF).