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Philosophy 281: Social Philosophy: Research Databases

An online course guide of resources for students taking Philosophy 281.

Journal Article Databases

Additional resources may be found by searching general, multi-disciplinary databases, e.g., Academic OneFile or Academic Search Complete. Please consult the A-Z Databases list, especially databases tagged for the subject Philosophy & Religious Studies, or ask a professor or librarian for suggestions.

Current Issues

Use these databases to find articles about current issues from newspapers and other sources.

Philosophy Journals in JSTOR

Religion and Philosophy Database Tips

The default display of results is to show you magazine articles so click Academic Journals to see scholarly journal results, and click article titles for full text or on citation only or abstract only items click the Find It button to see if you can access full text in another database

Hints for Finding Articles in a Library Article Database

Hints for searching in an article database:

  1. Put phrases in quotation marks (“ ”). A phrase is any two or more words next to each other.
    For example: “united states”; “sierra leone”
  2. Use the truncation symbol to get alternate endings to words
    For example: imperial* = imperial, imperialism, imperialist
    • The most common truncation symbol in the article databases is the asterisk (*). However, the symbol can be different, so if you don’t know for sure which symbol to use, ask a reference librarian.
  3. Think of synonyms or other ways to say the same thing or to convey the same or similar ideas
    For example: corruption; fraud; profiteer
    • Then link the synonyms together with the word OR (this expands your search)
      For example: corruption OR profiteer*
  4. Narrow your search by joining ideas together using the word AND
    For example: madagascar AND military
  5. Combine the AND and OR search by putting the synonyms in parentheses
    For example: war AND (fraud OR profiteer* OR corrupt*)
  6. Use the  button if the article you want isn’t available in full text in the current database you are searching. 
  7. Use Interlibrary Loan (ILLiad) to request an article that we don’t have online or in print from another library.

Find the Full Text

Most databases have both full text articles and article citations. When an article is not available in full text, use the  button to determine if Andersen Library has the article. 

Click the Find It button displayed near article citation.

You will be linked to Research@UWW away from the database you are searching in. 

1 of 3 options will be available to you:

1.) If we have access to the article, a link to the article in the database that it is available will display under the View It tab.

Simply click on the link provided, and you will be linked to the full text article to view in a library database.

2.)If we only have access to the article in print, the Get It tab will display. This will show you the location of where you can find the article in Andersen Library.

3.) If neither of the first two options are available, you will see a link that says We can get it for you! (Document Delivery/Illiad) under the Get It tab.

Simply login with your Net ID, and click request. We will do our best to find the article for you by requesting a copy from another library. This is available free of charge to students and faculty. Please allow up to 3-4 days for your request to be filled. Articles can be accessed by logging into My ILLiad located on the library homepage. You will receive an e-mail to your UWW e-mail account when the article becomes available.