Choose the Right Sources

Your essay is joining an academic conversation – most of the Internet (social media, etc.) differs from academic culture – acknowledge sources you use (reference and cite) and avoid plagiarism

• UC Academic Skills Centre, Working with academic literature: How to join the conversation and avoid plagiarism (AKO | LEARN)

Reading List

PHIL 133 > Ngā Whakamārama | Course Information > PHIL133 2024 Course Information

• Note: Your lecturer has put these here!
• Section II: Identify sources under your topic
• Scroll down to Section III Reading List for details

Search the library catalogue

• Philosophy Writing Guide: Task 14. Finding a book in the library catalogue
• Usually quickest: author surname and title words, for example
  • trigg ideas human nature

Reference Sources

• Philosophy Writing Guide: Task 16. Online Philosophy Encyclopedias
• Excellent sources for an overview of a topic
• NB. Wikipedia may help you initially – but it is not reliable enough to use directly, do not cite it!

• for example, “Plato”
  – use Find on the webpage for discussion of “forms”

• for example, Plato > Theory of Forms

• for example, Forms, Platonic

• There are more, specific philosophy reference sources
  • for example, about Plato

Journal Articles

• Philosophy Writing Guide: Task 15. Finding articles in academic journals
  • Avoid: off-topic – too technical – too old
  • Identify and read: one or two good ones that you can understand
    • Focused usually on a very specific topic or aspect
    • Peer-reviewed (scholarly) – relevant – written in English – full text – not too old
      • peer-review = subject experts act as referees after a paper is submitted – quality assurance – may suggest changes or reject the paper
    • Book reviews: usually don’t cite directly; may lead to a good book.

Example searches

• plato forms (since 2019)
• plato "theory of forms" (since 2019)
  • quotation marks around phrases can help focus the search.

• comprehensive for philosophy – searching – browsing
• direct download often works for full text
• if you see “purchase article”, don’t – unnecessary to pay for an article – ask John to check instead!

Example searches

• Browse: there may be a curated listing of articles...
  start the search plato > Categories drop-down > Plato: Metaphysics –  Plato: Forms (Restrictions: online only, published only)
• Advanced Search (small blue down-arrow at right of the search box)
    with all the words = plato
    with exact phrase = theory of forms
    Other = professional authors only, online only, published only

Example Advanced search

• plato AND "theory of forms"  (Item Type: Articles; Language: English; Publication Date: 1993–2023)  (Default sort= Relevance; can change to Newest if desired)

MultiSearch

• Start with your search terms, for example
  plato "theory of forms"
• Use the All filters button to narrow down, for example Date Range= Past 10 Years; Subject= plato
• Add more words, for example plato "theory of forms" reality

Referencing / Citing