Welcome to your course guide.

This page contains links to resources for students enrolled in the Augustine and Culture Seminar, as part of the Summer 2017 STOVS program.
 
Subject librarians are available to provide research support for your papers, projects, and other research pursuits. Whether you have questions about finding books and articles, compiling a literature review, or correctly citing sources, subject librarians are there to help. Contact information for each librarian can be found on their Subject Guide page.
 

Identifying scholarly sources

It is important that the materials you use for projects in this class are scholarly sources. These are quite different from the sorts of materials you might find by searching on Google or Wikipedia. In particular, scholarly sources ...
  • Are written by credentialed experts in their field
  • Are peer-reviewed, meaning they have been reviewed by two or more other credentialed experts
  • Are published by respected university presses or other academic presses
  • Contain references to other relevant literature in the field
  • Utilize the formal language or jargon of the discipline
 
The Web vs. Library Databases – A comparison 
A guide to understanding and evaluating the difference between scholarly and non-scholarly resources

Is it Scholarly? 
Tips for critically evaluating your information resources.
 

Reference resources

Reference resources, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, and collections of "review" articles, are great places to start your research process. They provide general overviews of topics, and contain references to additional resources and suggested readings.
 
Many reference resouces can be found by using the library's Articles & More search. After running your search, restrict the results to "reference" using the limiter on the right.
 
Here are a few other reference sources that will be especially useful for ACS:
 
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (REP) Online
Web access to the 10-volume print encyclopedia, published in 1998 with quarterly updates. Note that this encyclopedia uses British spellings, such as 'armoury,' 'colour' and 'theatre.'
 
Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture
The Cambridge Companions series offers specially-commissioned collections of essays which are intended to serve as reference works for an inter-disciplinary audience of students and non-specialists. Addressing topics and figures ranging from Plato through Kant to Habermas, and philosophical movements such as the Scottish Enlightenment and German Idealism, this online collection contains over 1300 downloadable essays taken from the Cambridge Companions to Philosophy, Religion and Culture (171 volumes). Each volume also includes a substantial bibliography and other elements such as glossaries and timelines.
 

Finding books

The Library's catalog enables patrons to search & browse Falvey Library's collection of books, journals, audio/video materials, electronic resources and more.
 
Books are arranged according to the Library of Congress call number system. The call number for each book appears in the book's catalog record.
 
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Finding articles

The library has a large number of research databases for specific subject areas, providing access to journal articles for those subjects. To find the right one, consult the appropriate Subject Guide, or use the list of Databases A-Z. Here are a few good ones to start with:

Philosopher's Index (ProQuest)
The Philosopher's Index is a bibliographic database with informative, author-written abstracts covering scholarly research in all areas of philosophy. The literature covered goes back to 1940 and includes journal articles, books, book chapters such as contributions to an anthology, and book reviews in 39 languages. The Philosopher's Index monitors over 1,400 journals from more than 80 countries and is updated quarterly. Extensive indexing includes personal and proper names along with subject terms; there is also the capability to search for the authors of book reviews.

JSTOR
A searchable and browsable archive of full-text core journals and books in the humanities, social sciences and mathematics.

Project Muse
Searchable collection of recent full-text humanities, social science and mathematics journals published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Old Testament Abstracts (EBSCO)
Features indexing and abstracts for journal articles, monographs,multi-author works, and software related to Old Testament studies. Topics covered include antiquities, archaeology, biblical theology, philology and much more.

Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)
Web of Science provides seamless access to the Science Citation Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Allows searching of articles based on citations and cited references.

Journal Finder

If you already have the reference for a journal article, you can look it up using the Journal Finder. You can find a link to this tool on the lower left side of the library's homepage.

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Citing sources

Here are links to three of the most common styles for citing sources. Ask your professor which style they want you to use for your assignments.

Chicago Manual of Style Online
The 16th edition of the standard style manual used by writers and editors of scholarly books and journals.
For a quick introduction watch the online tutorial A Brief Introduction to the Chicago Manual of Style.
Use the Chicago-Style Citation Quick Guide for easy reference.

MLA Handbook, Eighth Edition
LB2369 .G53 2016 Information desk. For an online overview of MLA style, see The MLA Style Center, or this page at the Purdue Owl.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
6th ed. The official guide to APA style. Circulation Desk copy BF76.7 .P83 2010. Copies also located in LRC and Health Promotion Library. A quick reference guide can be found at the Purdue Owl.