Selecting the best or most appropriate finding aid for identifying sources depends almost entirely on the context of your research project. There is no single database or web search interface that will work for every research context; instead, you'll need to match your specific research needs to a variety of options. What are the best discovery tools for this research paper? First consider the source requirements:

For your research project in this course, you will need to identify and use at least two secondary sources that meet the requirements below:

• The sources must be scholarly. 
• The sources must offer a philosophical argument. 

Your sources may be journal articles, books, essays in books, or any combination of these types of sources.

The need for scholarly sources automatically reduces the number of eligible databases. The need for philosophical arguments reduces the list further.

1. Start with specific titles suggested in subject encyclopedia entries.
2. Identify the Library of Congress Subject Headings for that book to identify more books on the topic.
3. If required for your assignment, make sure that the book is scholarly. 
4. To find eBooks, use the filters on the right to limit your results to eBooks (under "Resource Type")

Here are some clues to look for in the catalog record when you are evaluating whether a book is scholarly or popular:

• The publisher is either a university press or an academic publisher (such as Routledge, Wiley, Blackwell, etc.).
• The description of the book includes "notes and references."

When you have the book in hand, and still aren't sure if it is scholarly, you might want to do a little more digging, perhaps with a couple of quick Google searches:

• Who is the author? What are the author's credentials or other sources of expertise?
• Does the publisher have a website? If so, what types of books does it publish and what is the process for submitting work for consideration?

These subject databases may be especially useful for your research projects for this class. Depending on your topic and your angle, you may wish to search additional subject databases. 

For empirical research in the social sciences, try these databases:

These e-journal collections provide access to many journals in the field of Philosophy, but they are limited in scope and coverage compared to subject databases. In most cases, it's better to search subject databases to identify articles, and then search the journal title in Primo to link to the materials in these e-journal collections.

If your article is not available at Collins Library, you've got another option for getting it. Use Tipasa, our interlibrary loan service.

Tipasa is linked to your library account so you'll need to log in to use it.

Once you are logged in, either go directly to Tipasa and manually enter the information, or, if you're using a database, look for a shortcut link to automatically fill out the form:

Allow at least a week for the article to come. If your article is delivered in electronic format, you'll receive an email with a link to follow as soon as it's arrived.

Search for scholarly philosophical arguments in each of the two databases listed below. You can choose to search any of the topics available for the final project or any themes related to the course: happiness and virtue, flourishing, emotions, human diversity, etc.

For each database, try to answer the following questions:

1. How many results did you get?
2. What types of materials are included and/or indexed in the database? Journal articles, books, all of the above?
3. What are the date ranges of coverage? How current is the information?
4. Scan the first two pages of search results. List some aspects of your topic discussed.
5. Are there ways to limit the searches to include just philosophical arguments?