Paper , Order, or Assignment Requirements

*To search Articles*
http://www.jstor.org.libdb.smc.edu/action/showAdvancedSearch?acc=on&wc=on

JSTOR

For searching the JSTOR database go to the list “All Databases” in the library and scroll down

Click on JSTOR, login with your SMC student account, and then click on search
Once you are in go right to Search – advanced search.
Scroll down the list of journal types—all the way to “philosophy (134 titles)”
Put a check in the box
Go back to the top of the page to begin your search
Try your philosophy of X by using “philosophy” and “your area” – and instead of full text, have it search through abstracts. Abstracts are author generated paragraphs that summarize the article. You can go back and try a full text search, but when you do you want to use a technical term along with it. See #7 Searching for the term ‘philosophy’ in an article from a philosophy journal is probably not too helpful.
You can also try journals outside philosophy but, now you want to make sure that you are coming up with a philosophical article. Here using the term philosophy in your search might help, but the term is used so freely sometimes that it is not very useful.
Try using some technical terms from philosophy such as epistemology or ontology
Notice: “include only content I can access” – check that box
Skip down to “Narrow by” and select “articles” as the type. No books, no pamphlets.
Ignore book reviews
Date range: 2000 to 2016 is good. Don’t go older, stay as recent as you can and see what comes up.
Remember to look through philosophy journals first by checking the philosophy box inside the list of journal areas. Beware sometimes there might be a journal which is not strictly a philosophy journal
Remember we are interested in full academic articles, not editorial comments, not reviews of books. Most of the journals in JSTOR are peer reviewed.
Make sure that your articles are available in the Santa Monica College data bases. You can find articles on the internet that are in JSTOR but not the Santa Monica College data base collection. Run the title through the SMC data base and see if the article comes up.

Five Steps for Preparing your Assignment

1. State the philosophy of X area you chose from the list (above) for Assignment Stage I.

2. Search the philosophical literature for articles within the last 15 years or so using your background information (developed from Assignment Stage I) to sharpen your search if need be in your chosen area. Unless directed otherwise search in philosophy journals only. It’s an exercise in working with such literature.

3. For each item

(a) List the author, article title, journal title, volume, date, page;

(b) Make sure it is an article, not a review (book review), by placing a check in the appropriate box; make sure it is a peer reviewed journal by placing a check in the appropriate box

(c) list the search terms you used, how you used them, and from which data base(s); make sure your articles are retrievable, findable the way you say; be sure to check the box for “full text” so that only those articles whose full text is available online are retrieved.

(d) include a brief (two or three sentence) description in your own words of each article’s content. That’s the annotation part. Read the abstract, look through the article and use that on which to base your brief annotation. If there is no abstract, then either (a) find another article, or (b) read the article—this is a good reason to make your selections current and from established philosophy journals; as you go back in time abstracts become fewer and fewer until there aren’t any.

4. Write a report, a literature review (@ 150 -200 words), of the philosophical scene in your selected area using your best three articles. Discuss the philosophical scene as you can best ascertain it letting the three items be the representatives of the literature. Refer specifically to the items in your review by the author’s last name and the number on your bibliography list.

5. Finally, Identify the article (from your little bibliography of three) that you have chosen to examine further for Assignment Stage III, upcoming. Identify by author, article title, journal source, volume, date, page, one more time but this time display the abstract underneath, and the last paragraph of the article. Make sure the article is a philosophical treatment of a topic in the philosophy of “X”. Explain why you believe the search successfully retrieved a philosophy article, peer reviewed, etc. Discuss more fully the logic of the search for that selection.