Welcome to the Philosophy subject library guide!
Starting Points for Philosophy Research
Philosophers gather and synthesize resources from a variety of places. Where you start your research will depend on your topic. Nevertheless, it's a good idea to use these resources to start your search:
- WorldCat/Books+ - This links to our library catalog and includes materials like eBooks, print books, theses, dissertations, videos, music recordings, and much more. Books+ also searches libraries around the world. Start with a simple keyword search.
- Databases - Searching individual databases returns better results than using Library Search. Two places to start include:
- CREDO Reference - Start here and look for basic background information and definitions of your main topic. For example, search for "Bias" and then click on "Cognitive Bias" to see how psychologists define the term.
- Academic Search Ultimate - Use this as a starting point to see which academic journals have published content related to your topic. Not seeing results? Expand your search using the link to "Choose Databases" and select all of the databases before searching for your keywords.
- JSTOR - Humanities publications are the main focus of JSTOR collections. Find books, journal articles, and other content. Use keywords to narrow your search or try the Text Analyzer to find items related to a PDF version of an existing article.
- Philosophers Index - This specialized database focuses on articles, reviews and monographs related to philosophy.
Subject Terms and Keywords
As you review the individual items you have found during your search, you may notice that you need to change the keywords you use to expand your search. Subject Terms are found in Books+ and most databases; they usually refer to specific headings used by the Library of Congress or to subjects identified by the authors, publishers, or database administrators. Using Subject Terms will give you more precise results; several different subject terms may be related to your research topic.
