LibGuides: PLSI 3463: Masters of Suspicion: Finding Secondary Sources

Finding Secondary Sources

"Secondary sources" refers to reviews, criticism, and explications of your chosen author's work. Remember, these secondary sources are not written by your thinker, but rather by other people about your thinker's works.

While most of your secondary sources should be books, book chapters, or scholarly articles or essays, some may be from journals from the popular press, for example, from The Atlantic, the New Yorker, or magazines of literary criticism.

Start with these six top resources listed below:

MLA International Bibliography with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Excellent criticism source for most of the political thinkers.
Literary Reference Center This link opens in a new window
Another top source for criticism, including both academic and magazine articles.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Many full-text scholarly articles as well as book chapters for criticism.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(This is technically a tertiary source!) and is a great resource for finding both primary and secondary sources.

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR won't have the most recent 3-5 years of criticism, but you are likely to find a ton of secondary sources here.
Philosopher's Index This link opens in a new window
Use this as well as another EBSCO database called Humanities Source as additional resources for secondary literature. You might need to try a couple databases to see where your author's work is covered.