The WEB is no substitute for a comprehensive research effort. First, it is incomplete! Second, it contains more junk than not! Vast, and metastasizing, as it is, the WEB is not a reliable research base for the serious student. You should and may still have to make use of the resources of a "brick" library. Everything you need is probably not just a "click" or so away unless you are lucky enough to have full access to all of the the on-line "full-text" resources of a research university.
If you are writing an essay or term paper for a course, you must still make use of reliable bibliographic research indexes, e.g., The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Web-based search engines, even those which are subject-specific, are no substitute for a systematic search of the literature in a standard research index. Moreover, you may still have to "manually" access one or more of your sources. If you are lucky enough to have full electronic access from your PC to that and all of the other necessary searchable databases, including full-text as well as abstracts, you are very lucky indeed! Most of us do not have such access.
The following links fall into two broad catgories: Academic Sites & Non-academic Sites. Keeping track of the crucial differences between the two requires some care. It can also make a difference in the creditability of what you produce using them. The following guidelines may help. In any case, follow your instructor's guidance as well.
The academic sites are the work of professionally trained philosophers and their graduate students. These sites usually have .edu or .ac or .cc addresses. But they can also be .net & .org sites. The academic sites are the most reliable sources of information, though as you follow links and get farther away from the "source" site, you may come upon stuff which no professional philosopher or academic scholar would endorse. There are also some "academic" sites which are the work of undergraduates with an interest in "philosophical" topics. These are not always reliable sources of information since they can and do reflect individual, non-professional, and often idiosyncratic interests.
Delving into the non-academic sites sites requires even more care. These sites usually have .com addresses. But they can also be .net & .org sites. So check the academic credentials of the site's author as well as the professional creditability of any of the other linked sites before relying on the content.
Finally, the subject of philosophy itself is also controversial among professional philosophers themselves - What philosophy should be - How it should be done - What should count as a creditable contribution - Severe if now somewhat mitigated differences between "Anglophone" & "Continenal" philosophers on this still exist, but it is also a contentious issue within those two loosely collective academic sectors. This web page favors neither. However, you may have to be sensitive to the orientation of one or the other in the preparation of a particular class assignment.
Do not forget to cite the WWW source for all the sites you use. This is a moral obligation for paraphrased as well as for quoted material. Your instructor will provide you with a standard format for doing this.
Prudence is also a factor here. You risk receiving a failing grade for academic dishonesty. And the risk gets higher every day. Your instructor always has a means of checking the Web to determine if you have plagiarized someone else's content. All it takes is the use of a sophisticated search engine like HotBot to scan the Web for a suspiciously "professional" or otherwise revealing turn of phrase which has slipped into a student's work from some uncited source. And the "test for plagiarism becomes even easier if s/he requires you to turn in your work on a diskette along with the hard copy so that it can be scanned using a program designed for just that purpose. If you "napster" someone else's ideas, the consequences may be rather severe.
If you select any of the choices below, you will be leaving a web server of DeSales University for other sites on the Internet or World Wide Web. Neither DeSales University, the host institution for this instructional web page, nor Jonathan Matas, its author, is responsible for the content of any linked site not on a DeSales University web server nor for the content of any other linked sites beyond it. If you choose to leave this page for other sites on the World Wide Web, you do so with the understanding that the outside linked sites contain content not endorsed by either DeSales University or Jonathan Matas, and that you have made an informed decision to leave this page for the other site.
The WEB is no substitute for a comprehensive research effort. First, it is incomplete! Second, it contains more junk than not! Vast, and metastasizing, as it is, the WEB is not a reliable research base for the serious student. You should and may still have to make use of the resources of a "brick" library. Everything you need is probably not just a "click" or so away.
If you are writing an essay or term paper for a course, you must still make use of reliable bibliographic research indexes, e.g., The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Web-based search engines, even those which are subject-specific, are no substitute for a systematic search of the literature in a standard research index. Moreover, you may still have to "manually" access one or more of your sources. If you are lucky enough to have full electronic access from your PC to that and all of the other necessary searchable databases, including full-text as well as abstracts, you are very lucky indeed! Most of us do not have such access.
The following links fall into two broad catgories: Academic Sites & Non-academic Sites. Keeping track of the crucial differences between the two requires some care. It can also make a difference in the creditability of what you produce using them. The following guidelines may help. In any case, follow your instructor's guidance as well.
The academic sites are the work of professionally trained philosophers and their graduate students. These sites usually have .edu or .ac or .cc addresses. But they can also be .net & .org sites. The academic sites are the most reliable sources of information, though as you follow links and get farther away from the "source" site, you may come upon stuff which no professional philosopher or academic scholar would enorse. There are also some undergraduate "academic" sites. These are not always reliable sources of information since they can and do reflect individual, non-professional, and often idiosyncratic interests.
Delving into the non-academic sites sites requires even more care. These sites usually have .com addresses. But they can also be .net & .org sites. So check the academic credentials of both the sites author and the professional creditability of any of the other linked sites before using its content.
Finaly, the subject of philosophy itself is also controversial among professional philosophers themselves - What philosophy should be - How it should be done - What should count as a creditable contribution - Severe if now somewhat mitigated differences between "Anglophone" & "Continenal" philosophers but also a contentious issue within those two loosely collective academic sectors. This web page favors neither. However, you may have to be sensitive to the orientation of one or the other in the preparation of a particular class assignment.
Do not forget to cite the WWW source for all the sites you use. This is a moral obligation for paraphrased as well as for quoted material. Your instructor will provide you with a standard format for doing this.
Prudence is also a factor here. You risk receiving a failing grade for academic dishonesty. And the risk gets higher every day. Your instructor always has a means of checking the Web to determine if you have plagiarized someone else's content. All it takes is the use of a sophisticated search engine like HotBot to scan the Web for a suspiciously "professional" or otherwise revealing turn of phrase which has slipped into a student's work from some uncited source. And the "test for plagiarism becomes even easier if s/he requires you to turn in your work on a diskette along with the hard copy so that it can be scanned using a program designed for just that purpose. If you "napster" someone else's ideas, the consequences may be rather severe.