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Political Science

Search Strategies

When devising a search strategy for using the library's resources, you can try simply typing your chosen Theorist. For example:

  • Confucius
  • Plato
  • Alfarabi

If you retrieve an unwieldy number of results, try a narrower search by including a phrase with the Theorist' name, such as:

  • Confucius AND "political ethics"
  • Plato AND "political thought"
  • Alfarabi AND "political philosophy"
  • Augustine AND "political theory"

(include the quotation marks; this searches the words as a phrase rather than as separate words)

Name Spelling Variations

Before starting your search, run a quick Google search of your Theorist' name to see if there exist variant spellings. For example, Alfarabi is also known as:

  • Al-Farabi
  • Alfarabius
  • Farabi

So when searching Alfarabi in a library datbase, use this example of a search string, including the "OR"s, to find articles that use any four spelling variations:

Alfarabi OR Al-Farabi OR Alfarbius OR Farabi

Other Sources

GoogleScholar. Go to the Library FAQ, "How do I use Google Scholar?" for help in effectively using Google Scholar.

Wikipedia. Take advantage of the references, bibliographies, sources, external links, and further reading at the end of Wikipedia articles. Example in Wikipedia's article on Augustine.