Research Guides for Freshman Writing Seminars

WRI 111 Political Ethics & the Problem of Dirty Hands

John J. Hernandez
Politics & U.S. Documents Librarian
Office: A-15-J-1 Firestone Library
Phone: (609) 258-3209
Email: jhernand@princeton.edu

Wayne Bivens-Tatum
Philosophy & Religion Librarian
Office: C-17-E-1 Firestone Library
Phone: (609) 258-6367
Email: rbivens@princeton.edu

The resources listed here are helpful for clearing up terminology and getting some background on key philosohpical concepts to give your papers some context. This is only a sampling of what is available online and in the General & Humanities and Social Science reference centers in Firestone.

• Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (PU only)
  Provides full-text articles with current bibliographies on virtually every aspect of philosophy, including Anglo-American, ethical and political, cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, continental, and contemporary philosophy.
   
• International Encyclopedia of Social & Behavioral Science (PU only)
  Aims to capture the "state of the art" of the social and behavioral sciences, expanding its focus to include related biological fields, such as evolutionary science, genetics, cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, and health. Topics include anthropology, archaeology, demography, economics, education, geography, history, law, linguistics, philosophy, political science, psychiatry, psychology, and sociology.
   
• Oxford Reference Online (PU only)
  This convenient web resource brings together online versions of 100 well-known and trusted dictionaries and reference books such as the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, Dictionary of Political Biography, Dictionary of the Social Sciences, and Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy.
   
• A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy.
  Publisher: Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1993.
  Location: General & Humanities Reference (DR)
  Call Number: JA71 .C565 1993
  

The Main Catalog is your primary tool for finding books in the Princeton University Libraries. You can also use the catalog to find other materials, including videos, sound recordings, internet sites, and journals (the journals themselves- not individual articles). The Main Catalog provides two search modes: Basic Search and Guided Search.

Keyword searching is best used when you don't know the exact title, author's name, or subject heading. Use keywords especially when you want to discover what items the library has for your topic, as this allows you to express the topic in your own words. For more tips on using the Main Catalog see the Help Page.

When you get some search results, use the Long View feature to display the full record with subject headings. Once you find items that seem relevant to your topic, take note of the subject headings listed for those items. You can do follow-up searches using these subject headings to get related items.

If you find your subject searches are not yielding good results, you might want to look at the Library of Congress Subject Headings located at the reference desk. This set of large red volumes provides a listing of the appropriate subject headings that correspond to various topics. Be sure to ask the staff at the reference desk for assistance.

Beyond the Main Catalog, you have access to other Princeton Library catalogs, as well as regional and worldwide catalogs, via the Library Catalogs Page. If you find items outside of Princeton, you can request these be sent here via Interlibrary Loan or Borrow Direct.
 

The following databases provide references to many scholarly journal articles and papers. There are many additional resources available to help you locate journal articles on the library's Find Articles & Databases page. Here's a useful search strategy that works for essentially any article index database.

General & Multi-disciplinary Databases:

• EBSCO Academic Search Premier (PU only)
  This is a multi-disciplinary full text database covering over 7,000 scholarly and peer-reviewed journals in nearly every area of academic study including: social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, physics, chemistry, language & linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, ethnic studies, and more. Coverage goes back to 1975.
   
• Wilson OmniFile (PU only)
  Multi-disciplinary database providing select full text articles, abstracts, and indexing. Consists of databases for scholarly sources in agriculture, applied science and technology, art, biology, business, education, general science, humanities, law, library and information science, social sciences, as well as popular appeal titles.
   
• ProQuest Research Library (PU only)
  Provides (mostly) full-text access to a wide variety of newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals from 1986-present.
   

Specialized Databases:

• America: History & Life (PU only)
  Indexes books and journal articles on the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Covers works published 1954-present.
   
• Historical Abstracts (PU only)
  This database has long been recognized as the leading bibliography providing unmatched coverage of world history (excluding North America) dealing with time periods from 1450 to the present. It covers approximately 2,000 journals, as well as books and dissertations published worldwide since the mid 1950s in history and related areas, including anthropology, genealogy, multicultural studies, political science, and sociology.
   
• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (PU only)
  Compiled by the British Library of Political & Economic Science of the London School of Economics & Political Science, this database provides bibliographic information from an international selection of publications (including over 2,600 journals) in the fields of economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology. Covers 1951-present.
   
• Sociological Abstracts (PU only)
  Indexing and abstracting of the world's literature in sociology and related disciplines, both theoretical and applied. Covers 2,500 journals, conference papers, dissertations, and book reviews. Includes materials in 30 languages and covers works published 1963-present. This resource may help you to locate articles on the social aspects of democratic development in various countries.
   
• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (PU only)
  Worldwide provides citations and abstracts of the international literature in political science, including journal articles, books and book chapters, dissertations, and reviews. It also covers such areas as international relations, law, sociology, economics, and public policy. Provides references to reliable websites. Covers 1975-present.
   

News sources can be very useful for finding primary coverage of specific events, as well as feature articles and editorials related to your topic. For additional resources, be sure to consult the Newspaper Indexes page.

Contemporary News (mid-1980s to present):

• Lexis Nexis Academic (PU only)
  Provides full text access to news from across the U.S. and around the world. Coverage of most newspapers goes back to the mid 1980s, but varies widely. Also provides access to business, legal, and medical journals, as well as corporate financial information. Click on News in the red bar to begin your search.
   
• NewsBank Full-Text Newspapers (PU only)
  Provides full-text of many major national and regional newspapers from the United States and around the world.
   
• Factiva (PU only)
  Database from Dow Jones & Reuters that provides full text access to various newspapers and news wire services.
   
• ProQuest Newspapers (PU only)
  Provides indexing and full text of the Wall Street Journal (1984- ) and the New York Times (1980- ) and abstracts only of USA Today (1989- ).
   
• Google - News
  URL: http://www.google.com/news
  Google News pulls together related headlines and photos from approximately 4,500 news sources worldwide, automatically arranging them to present the most relevant news first. Google News enables you to see how different news organizations around the world report the same events. Stories are updated continuously throughout the day, making this an especially useful source for breaking news.
   

Historical News (back to mid-1800s):

• Historical New York Times (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) (PU only)
  Provides retrospective coverage of the New York Times going back to the first issue (1851-2004) in full text. Search by keywords and date.
   
• Historical Wall Street Journal (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) (PU only)
  Provides retrospective coverage of the Wall Street Journal going back to the first issue (1889-1990) in full text. Search by keywords and date.
   
• Historical Washington Post (ProQuest Historical Newspapers) (PU only)
  Provides retrospective coverage of the Washington Post going back to the first issue (1877-1991) in full text. Search by keywords and date.
   
• Reader's Guide Retrospective (PU only)
  This retrospective online version of the ever-popular Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature contains comprehensive indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the U.S. between the years 1890-1982.
   

Foreign News (1975-present):

• Finding World Newspapers at Princeton
  URL: http://libweb.princeton.edu/help/research/history/guides/world_news.php
  This is a very helpful guide compiled by our History Librarian Elizabeth Bennett that offers some guidance on locating foreign newspapers of interest.
   
• ABYZ News Links
  URL: http://www.abyznewslinks.com
  ABYZ News Links is a portal to online news sources from around the world. It is primarily composed of links to newspaper pages but also includes links to many broadcast stations, internet services, magazines, and press agencies. Be aware that the actual news sources you will ulimately find are likely not to be in English.
   
• Foreign Broadcast Information Service Electronic Index (PU only)
  Provides indexing to the Daily Reports of the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service. These reports include translated broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals, and government statements from nations around the world. Search by keyword, region and date.
  Note: This index only covers reports from 1975-1996, which are mostly available in microfiche with some in paper. Ask for help locating these reports at the Social Science Reference Center. For earlier material, contact me. For more recent material, see the World News Connection below.
   
• World News Connection (PU only)
  Continues coverage of the FBIS reports mentioned above from 1996 to present, and with full text. The search functions are similar (by keyword, region, and date) with a "latest headlines" feature for monitoring current news.
   

URL: http://firestone.princeton.edu/politics/guides/wri111.html
Send suggestions and comments on this page to:
jhernand@princeton.edu