Organizing Your Research

Locate background information on the United Nations
You will need to understand the structure and rules of proceedure for the UN, particularly UN agencies, in order to do effective research on the United Nations.

Particularly useful are:
- Basic Facts about the United Nations
- Everyone's United Nations
- The UN in Brief
  online resource from the United Nation's Department of Public Information

Locate background information on your country
Since it is not always possible to gather sufficient information on a specific country solely from United Nations sources, other library materials should be consulted. Sources such as newspapers, periodicals, and the translation services of the United States government will provide valuable information about countries around the world.

If you have difficulty locating sufficient information on your particular country in the sources described here, it may be helpful to identify countries with similar domestic and foreign policies and to search for information on these countries. It is then possible to use this information to decide how a country might debate and vote on a particular topic.

Locate background information on issues before the United Nations
You not only need to know your country's position on an issue but the broad outlines of an issue and opposing positions. Sources particularly useful for this are:

Find speeches by a member country's representative
The text of a speech by a UN member country's representative at a plenary session or committee meeting can be invaluable for defining a country position. Use either the print and electronic indexes listed under speeches and debates to track these materials.

Find statements on a member country's foreign policy
You can locate statements about a UN member country's foreign policy perspective in official sources such as press releases from foreign embassies, information centers, and ministries of foreign affairs. The Libraries' print collection of materials is located in Second Floor Paterno Library Stacks. Consult with the Social Sciences Library staff for assistance with these.

There are also numerous internet resources from foreign countries: use the Yahoo! : Countries list or Yahoo! : Embassies and Consulates list to locate some of these. Translations of newspapers or broadcasts done by the U.S. government are another important source. These are most easily located using the FBIS (Foreign Broadcast Information Service) and World News Connection databases.