Appropriate Sources for the Essay

• Green: appropriate types of sources for your essay.
• Orange: may be appropriate; consider carefully where the source was located, how reliable it is and why you are using it. Use sparingly.
• Red: very unlikely to be appropriate unless identified by your lecturer as a source they want you to look at.

Sources: Where to Start

Books on High Demand for PHIL 139

Topical Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

• Ethics (general)
• Political Philosophy and Theory

Philosophy Encyclopedias

Sources: Searching Further

Referencing

For PHIL 139 we recommend you use APA 7th style and include page numbers in all in-text citations.

References

Basic Format for All Types of Reference

Who. (When). What. Where.

Books

Wolff, J. (2016). An introduction to political philosophy (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.

Edited Book Chapters and Encyclopedia Articles

Flam, H. (2009). Authentic emotions as ethical guides? A case for scepticism. In M. Salmela & V. Mayer (Eds.), Emotions, ethics, and authenticity (pp. 195–214). John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Mulder, D. H. (n.d.). Objectivity. In J. Fieser & B. Dowden (General Eds.), Internet encyclopedia of philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved July 5, 2021, from https://iep.utm.edu/objectiv/

Sober, E. (1998). Evolution and ethics. In T. Crane & E. Craig (Eds.), The Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780415249126-S022-1

Journal Articles

Earp, B. D. (2016). Science cannot determine human values. Think, 15(43), 17–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175616000026

Pölzler, T., & Wright, J. C. (2019). Empirical research on folk moral objectivism. Philosophy Compass, 14(5), Article e12589. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12589

In-text Citations

Citations within the prose of your essay indicate which reference you are referring to in order to acknowledge the source of the idea, opinion or fact you are writing about.

Citations consist of:

• Who (author surnames)
• When (year)
• Part of the source you used (usually a page or pages).

Examples of narrative and parenthetical citations using the references above:

Wolff (2016, pp. 111–113) ... OR (Wolff, 2016, pp. 111–113)
Flam (2009, p. 198) ... OR (Flam, 2009, p. 198)
Mulder (n.d., Objectivist Theories section) ... OR (Mulder, n.d., Objectivist Theories section)
Mulder (n.d., “Does Agreement Among Subjects” section) ... OR (Mulder, n.d., “Does Agreement Among Subjects” section)
– put “ ” around the section title if you shorten it.
Sober (1998, The Is/Ought Distinction section) ... OR (Sober, 1998, The Is/Ought Distinction section)
Earp (2016, pp. 17–21) ... OR (Earp, 2016, pp. 17–21)
Pölzler and Wright (2019, p. 9) ... OR (Pölzler & Wright, 2019, p. 9)

APA Help

• Introduction to APA Referencing (Library AKO | LEARN module)
• More details on how to write different types of references are on the Library’s APA guide
• Details on how to write in-text citations are on the Library’s APA guide
• and you can contact John Arnold (Philosophy Subject Librarian) for help, too!

Contact Me for Help