Background information for specific countries can be found in a variety of places online. Recommnded are: the CIA World Factbook, Background Notes from the U.S. State Department, Country Studies from Library of Congress, and BBC News Country Profiles.

Other suggested resources:  Foreign Governments created at Northwestern University is a quick guide to departments and agencies of foreign governments. Foreign Governments Resources from University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries are guides arranged by subject.

Specialized websites often have country information specifically related to their subjects, such as IMF Country Information (economic and monetary), FAO Country Profiles (food and agriculture), UNICEF Information by Country (issues affecting children), and the World Health Organization: Countries (public health issues).

Environment and geography sites include EarthTrends which provides country profiles on various topics related to environmental themes.

More information on researching country information can be found on the Government Information Research Guide on the State, International tab.

U.S. Treaties:

For pending or recent U.S. treaties, consult Senate, House and Treaty Documents from GPO Access, or Treaty Actions (U.S. Dept. of State).

Treaties in Force Online: primary index to U.S. treaties, issued annually. Latest issue online; also in print since 1955, JX235.9 .A2.

International treaties and agreements:

United Nations Treaty Collection (best viewed in IE);

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) -  links to many environmental programs, secretariats and treaties

Links to Multilateral Environmental Agreements

International Environmental Agreements (IEA) Database Project - developed with assistance of the University of Oregon, the National Science Foundation and the American Philosophical Society

European Union Policy areas - Environment

Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) - a nonprofit organization working to use international law and institutions to protect the environment.

For information on how to perform a literature review, consider the following resources:

American University Library Literature Review Tutorial: http://www.library.american.edu/Help/tutorials/lit_review/index.html

Write a Literature Review: http://library.ucsc.edu/help/howto/write-a-literature-review

1. Start with OSU Libraries Catalog for books at Valley Library and OSU's other libraries. 2. Next try Summit Catalog to request items from other Northwest academic libraries (indicated as Held by: Summit). Deliver to OSU within 3-4 days. 3. Finally, If Summit doesn't have it we'll find a library that does-just click the Request from Interlibrary Loan button.

Other Options: Google Book Search searches within indexes and texts of books. How much of the book you see depends on the copyright status, and on how much of their copyrighted work that authors and publishers who participate in the program will allow. For many items you can click on "Find this book in a library" to see if OSU owns a copy.This is not a complete catalog, so please check OSU and Summit catalogs, too.

You may be able to find all the appropriate articles you need in a general database such as Academic Search Premier or Academic One File. But you also may find them in one of the various  Environmental Sciences databases. Here are a few suggestions.

Environmental Issues: Essential Primary Sources  -  an online reference work from the Gale Virtual Reference Library

CQ Weekly - Congressional Quarterly's magazine on government, commerce, and politics. Searchable indexes. (Browse votes by topic might be useful too!)

Style Guides: MLA, APA, Chicago-Turabian

•  Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) (for APA and MLA)
•  University of California Berkeley Library (for Chicago-Turabian; in pdf)

Citation Builder  

• Online Citation Builder (Univ of N. Carolina Libraries)

Avoiding Plagiarism

• Oops, I Plagiarized Tips and guide to avoiding plagiarism (UCLA Library)
• Plagiarism Tutorial (San Jose State University)