Public policy covers a wide range of rules, regulations, and guidelines formulated by governments to solve problems that have an impact on the society and the general public. As such, there is a wide range of topics included in public policy research, anything from civil/human rights to tax reforms.
When research public policy topics, it is important to remember that there are many stakeholders with their own agendas and interpretations. There are instances where biases or discrimination coming from intentional, unintentional, a result of institutional barriers, or other reasons. That being said, understanding where discrimination comes from and why is an important part of public policy research. Here are a few resources to get your started:
Literature reviews are a genre of writing that you can find at the beginning of a scholarly journal article and as a standalone piece of work. Reviews summarize, analyze, and synthesize existing research on a topic often pointing out gaps in the literature or future directions for research.
How can I conduct my own literature review? Start by identifying your research question and building your search strategy. Large comprehensive indexes are a great place to systematically search a lot of sources at once. We recommend OneSearch or Scopus as multidisciplinary resources to start followed by narrower discipline specific databases.
