Philosophy and Religious Studies  

Need help navigating our resources? Visit the General Reference Research Guide or contact a librarian (see profile at right).

BOOKS (Use this tab to explore):

Using the OASys Catalog to search Oxy Collections

Trying other library catalogs to find materials outside of Oxy

Learning how to locate books on the shelves (called "stacks")

Using subject headings to execute more precise searches

ARTICLES (Use this tab to explore):

Using databases to find scholarly article citations and full text

Identifying major publications in your subject

Locating online and print journals accessible through Oxy

Topic Finding and Thesis Formation

• Follow your interest.
• Look for tensions, anomalies and unanswered questions.
• What assumptions have been made in previous scholarship surrounding a topic?
• What critical approaches have and haven't been taken with certain topics?
• Narrow or broaden an area of interest, and look for ways you can situate an argument within a larger argument, or in opposition to another argument.
• Look outside of philosophy or religion at other influences and factors that are related to your topic.

Initial Exploration

• Wikipedia (and other encyclopedias)
• Google (Scholar, Web, Images, Books)
• WorldCat  or OxyWorldCat
• Newspapers

Writing and Research Resources

The Craft of Research by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams.  Q180.55.M4 B66 2003

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) guides

• The Writing Process
• Academic Writing
• Annotated Bibliographies