English

Your assignment requires you to analyze the history of immigration policy in America. You are required to argue for or against (choose a side or position) the claim that current policies are insufficiently responsive to the needs of immigrant communities and do not adequately promote social justice.

Some keywords that might work well when searching for peer reviewed articles for your project include:

• America immigration polic* "social justice"
  • The *, which is optional, will give you a variety of suffixes such as policy, policies and police
  • When you surround search terms with quotation marks, like "social justice," you are telling the database that the words must appear as an exact phrase. Only use this feature for phrases.
    • For example, I tried the above search with and without quotations. The results of both searches were:
      • no quotations =  30,525  vs  using quotation = 9,235 results
• America immigration policy "social justice" histor*
• America immigrant communit* "social justice"

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You can also add populations or specific political if you want to be more specific such as:

• Muslim ban 
  • America polic* Muslim ban
• Detention center
  • America detention center "social justice" immigra*
• Japanese internment
  • America polic* Japanese immigra*

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Before you start your search, it's a good idea to understand the peer review process. Peer review is where experts in a particular field read and evaluate a piece of research before it is published. The goal of peer review is to ensure that the research is sound and meets the standards of the field. Peer review is an important part of the scientific process. It helps to ensure that the research that is published is reliable and accurate.

Here is an example search using some of the search terms mentioned above using OneSearch (a tool that searches for articles, ebooks, and other resources at one time)  Remember to filter your results on the left side of the page by selecting scholarly articles and articles then apply filters (green button) to reveal peer reviewed options. 

For more information about setting up a search, and how to use keywords, see our Search Techniques Guide.

OneSearch will search for articles from all of the Pierce databases.

• Type in your subject or keywords and click Search
• From the results screen, limit to Scholarly Journals under "Show Only" and Articles under "Resource Type"

Find books, articles, and more.

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You can also use Govtrack to browse bills in the U.S. Congress related to the subject Immigration, as determined by the Library of Congress. Use this source if you are unable to locate adequate background in Credo Reference or Gale eBooks. 

The links below will help you find credible articles from newspapers, magazines, and journals. If you find other sources on the web, use our Evaluation Guide to determine the site's credibility and relevance.