Intro to Public Policy Research for Graduate Students (21 min)

This video provides an overview of key skills graduate students need to conduct policy research. It talks about why research is so critical to policy analysis, provides tips on finding and evaluating sources, describes basic search strategies, and provides some ideas on how to document your work. It draws heavily off of Bardach and Patashnik's book, A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: The Eightfold Path.

Intro 0:00
Why do we do research? 0:24
What and How? 1:20
First steps: 2:30
Finding and evaluating sources: 3:46
Search strategies: 9:00
From data to evidence: 14:25
Research journal: 17:19
Summary: 20:50

Academic Journals
Scimago Journal Ranking: https://www.scimagojr.com
Journal Citation Reports from Clarivate is another helpful tool and is often available for free via your university library: https://access.clarivate.com/

News Media Articles
AllSides: https://www.allsides.com/news-source/
Media Bias / Fact Check: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com
The Future of Media Project: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/futur...

Think Tank Research
Source Watch: https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...
Bethel College Guide: https://bethelks.libguides.com/c.php?...

Nonprofit Organizations
ProPublica: https://projects.propublica.org/nonpr...

This video was developed to assist students who are starting the MPP degree at USC's Sol Price School of Public Policy and was put online to help graduate students anywhere.