Researching Third Parties
This guide is to assist students in Professor Jami Rush's UNIV100 classes.
Questions?
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Call: (337) 482-6025
Email: reference@louisiana.edu
Text: (337) 205-7558
Visit: 1st Floor - Dupré Library
Hours: Reference Desk/Chat
Note: Reference Chat and Email services are primarily for the students, faculty, and staff of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The department will assist the public if the question concerns the University or some unique resource of Dupré Library, such as Federal government publications.
Contact

Jennifer Hamilton
Contact:
Head of Instruction / Asst. Professor
Room 153 (behind the mural in Reference)
Room 153 (behind the mural in Reference)
(337) 482-1160
Website
Researching Third Parties in the American Political System
Researching third parties in the American political system involves researching both politics and history. It could also involve other fields like statistics (e.g. polling and demographics), economics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology.
- Dupré Library HomepageA good place to start
Topic hunting?
- Credo Reference ** This link opens in a new windowStart with Credo for a mind map search that links to good books for general overview articles to get a sense of the topic.
Other helpful resources we will cover in your library visit are:
- eBooks | Gale ** This link opens in a new windowA huge collection of reference books that include books on politics. No need to read them all, just search like any online resource, and save or print the book pages that you need. Try search for "third party candidate" and then start looking at the suggested subjects and decades on the right. Also try the name of a specific party like "Libertarian Party" or "National Liberty Party."
- EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS)Note that this box is more like Google than the searches in the database. So if you use EDS and once in the database get frustrated, go out to the library's home page and search from there.
Search Books, Databases, and More
Political Science databases (Recommended list)
History Databases (Recommended list)
- Oxford African American Studies Center ** This link opens in a new windowTry searching African American (radio button) for "political party" and then "independent party"
- America's Historical Newspapers: Louisiana State Package | NewsBank ** This link opens in a new windowEasier to search once you have more specific names or keywords, though can also browse by date or era
- Biography: In Context | Gale ** This link opens in a new windowIf you are searching for info on a particular person
Other links of note:
- Dupré Library - Catalog SearchSearch the Dupré Library Catalog to find print books, eBooks, periodical titles, and government documents.