Section 5: Recommended Reading

This page contains a list of resources that should help you to start finding the information you need to advance your cause. Hopefully, you will find that this page strikes a delicate balance between too much and too little information. If you cannot find what you are looking for, you can email Amelie at davis.amelie@gmail.com for more help with your search.

General Reference

Search Engines

With the exception of Google, the engines listed here are Meta Search Engines, meaning that they pass your query to multiple search engines and return the results.

• Google
• Google Search Instructions
• dogpile (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask)
• metacrawler (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask)
• WebCrawler (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask)
• U-C Berkeley Search Tutorial -- A useful guide to searching the web for information

Online Encyclopedias

• Citizendium
• Wikipedia
• Google knol
• Scholarpedia

A large collection of informative links is available on my personal Internet Portal.

International Resources

U.S. International Relations

• Center for Economic and Policy Research
• Council on Foreign Relations
• North American Congress on Latin America
• World Policy Journal

United Nations

• United Nations
• Economic and Social Development
• Human Rights
• Humanitarian Affairs
• International Law
• Peace and Security
• World Health Organization
• UNdata -- Web access to UN databases
• United Nations Documentation: Research Guide -- FAQs, updates and training guides on using UN resources
• INTERPOL -- World's largest international police organization

Regional Treaties

• European Union
• Organization of American States

"Free Trade" Agreements

• North American Free Trade Agreement
• The World Bank
• World Trade Organization

Military Alliances

• North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

Non-Government Organizations

• Amnesty International
• Human Rights Watch
• International Committee of the Red Cross
• International Organizations and Related Information (University of Michigan) -- Detailed list of IGOs and NGOs
• Médecins Sans Frontieres

U.S. Government Resources

The easiest way to access a given agency's FOIA information is to enter the name of the agency and "Freedom of Information Act" into a standard Internet search engine. For instance:

• United States Government Manual -- The United States Government Manual provides comprehensive information on the agencies of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches.
• Government Printing Office -- Provides access to government documents and an online bookstore where publications may be ordered
• The National Academies -- Advisers to the Nation on Science, Engineering and Medicine

Who to contact

• Members of Congress & Congressional District Maps (govtrack.us)
• RollCall | Congress.org (Capitol Advantage and Knowlegis, LLC) -- Identifies federal and state legislators and executives
• Project Vote Smart (Project Vote Smart) -- Provides detailed information about politicians (down to the names of spouses, children and pets!)

Legislative Information

• THOMAS Library of Congress -- Legislative information directly from the Library of Congress

Executive Information

• The White House
• CIA World Factbook -- A collection of unclassified information on different nations

Political Parties

• Constitution Party
• Democratic Party
• Green Party
• Libertarian Party
• Republican Party
• World Socialist Party

Environment

• Arbor Day Foundation
• Conservation International
• Defenders of Wildlife
• Earth First!
• Environmental Defense Fund
• Greenpeace
• National Audubon Society
• Nature Conservancy
• Ocean Conservancy
• Purdue Boiler Green
• Sierra Club
• Union of Concerned Scientists
• WWF

Human & Civil Rights

• American Civil Liberties Union
• Center for Constitutional Rights
• CodePink -- Women for Peace

Technology

• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Free Software Foundation

For Aspiring Activists

• Activist Toolkit (Amnesty International)
• Becoming an Effective and Efficient Activist (ACLU)
• Getting Active in Your Community (ACLU)
• Raise the Roof (Video, Amnesty International)

Media Resources

Corporate Media

• Associated Press --News wire service that supplies stories to almost every corporately-owned agency
• New York Times
• The Washington Post

Independent Media

Links to independent media resources are available in a separate article named, aptly enough, "Independent Media".

Media Reform

• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
• Free Press
• Institute for Public Accuracy
• Media Channel

1. 1. I excluded the 'of' in this example because most search engines ignore conjunctions and prepositions.