INTL 349U Gender and International Development: Introduction

This guide is designed to assist you in gathering resources for your INTL 349U final paper, which requires you to use UN publications, chapters, peer-reviewed articles, and reports generated by international organizations (eg. UN, World Bank, etc).

To assist you in finding the material you'll need, this guide provides information on:
-Finding Background Information
-Finding International Organization Reports
-Finding e-Book chapters
-Finding Articles
-Database Search Techniques
-Guidelines on Citation

If you need assistance finding additional materials, the guide includes information on contacting the library for personalized assistance.

Types of Sources

1) General overviews that provide background information (See "Background Information")
2) Topic-specific International Organization Reports (See "International Organization Reports")
3) E-books produced by reputable publishers (See "Finding e-books"). 
4) Academic journal articles (see "finding articles")
Important Note: While general overviews and organization reports are extremely important and helpful, only academic e-books and academic journal articles are "peer reviewed" sources.

All 4 resource types has a different purpose, which will dictate when you use each.
General overviews provide a big picture summary of your topic. They are a great starting point because it gives you the "Big Ideas" on your topic. As an example, works like Guide to Countries of the World or the EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit)​ will provide general overview information about the country you are studying. Though scholarly and written by experts, these works are not necessary "peer reviewed."
E-books (also called scholarly monographs) are more detailed, and will focus on a large topic. Once you have a topic, and want to learn more about that specific idea, this will be your next stop. As an example, while a general overview may have a paragraph about education in Mexico, an E-book like Improving schools : strategies for action in Mexico will provide significantly more detail on the topic.
Articles tend to be very detailed, but narrow in scope. Typically you will move on to articles after you have a very specific question. As an example, the question "do Indigenous girls in Mexico have access to elementary school education" would be too specific for an entire book, but it is exactly the type of question asked within an article.
Reports are similar in scope to articles, as they focus on a specific topic like Gender-responsive migration laws in Mexico. They are also similar to articles in that their authors are frequently experts in the field. An important difference, however, is that they are not published in academic journals, and may not necessary be considered "peer reviewed" materials.