Indexes virtually all doctoral dissertations and many masters theses produced in the U.S. since 1861. Dissertations from other countries date back to 1637. Abstracts available from 1980. Full-text for dissertations are being added continually. Most since 1997 are full-text, though some authors choose not to make their work available. Print and microfilm copies are offered for a fee, but request the item via Interlibrary Loan before paying for a copy.
New search functionality includes metadata from Clarivate's Citation Connection. To ensure your search results take advantage of this new functionality, please add “AND ref(1)“ to your search terms.
To search only dissertations and theses completed at Western Michigan University, please use the Dissertations & Theses @ Western Michigan University database. To view digital theses and dissertations hosted in the WMU Libraries repository, please visit ScholarWorks@WMU.
WMU doctoral dissertations are all available, full-text, in the Dissertations & Theses database.
If you search in the advanced search in the the Books and Media portion of the Library Search catalog, you may also find print copies of both WMU master's and doctoral dissertations that are available for checkout.
Try the following search in the new catalog:
1st box type "political science"
2nd box type "western michigan university"
3rd box type thesis
Should you find a dissertation that is NOT full-text in the database, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan. About half of the colleges and universities in the U.S. will lend their theses, so you have a fifty-fifty chance of getting it.