Getting Started

At this point in your research, you should have a stack of books and a pile of copied articles that you are soon going to have to begin to read. Where do you start? The answer is that you should start with the most general literature and work your way systematically to the most specific.

Let’s pretend that you are planning to do a paper on "The Role of Women in Plato’s Ideal Polis." The first thing that you should read is an (1) encyclopedia article on Plato, such as the article on "Plato" in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This will give you a general overview of Plato’s life and works that will later help you to situate his political thought. You might also try to read a (2) general intellectual biography of Plato or a (3) general survey of his thought, such as R.M. Hare’s Plato, which has a chapter specifically dedicated to Plato’s political philosophy. Volume One of F. Copleston’s History of Philosophy would likewise be a good place to start reading in order to find out some general information about Plato.

Now that you have some idea of who Plato is and what his major works are all about, you are ready to focus the rest of your reading on Plato’s political thought. It is now time to pick up a (4) general subject area work on a particular aspect of an author’s thought. For Plato’s political thought, E. Barker’s The Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle, would be ideal.

Assuming that you understand the basics of Plato’s political thought, the remainder of your reading should focus on (5) specific subject area works dealing with the particular topic of your paper. It is time to begin reading articles in anthologies (i.e., N. Tuana, collection of essays in Feminist Interpretations of Plato) and in journals (i.e., S. Pomeroy’s article on "Feminism in Book V of Plato’s Republic" found in Aperion). You should also be reading any books that specifically deal with this topic (i.e., N. Bluestone, Women and the Ideal Society: Plato’s Republic) as well as chapters and sections of books that also treat the subject (i.e., chapter 4 of C. Reeve’s Philosopher-Kings).

(6) Primary sources in Philosophy are best left to be read after you have completely mastered the secondary literature. Even those who are well trained in the discipline of Philosophy can have difficulty at times understanding certain primary sources. If you have trouble grasping the ideas presented in the primary sources, it probably means that you have not yet mastered the general aspects of the author’s thought. Rereading the secondary literature might help to clear things up a bit. Avoid at all costs the temptation to write on a topic that you don’t really understand. This lack of understanding will inevitably come through in your writing and will turn your paper into a big mess.

Taking Notes 

If you have already started to read sources in preparation for writing your paper, stop immediately! As you read, it is vitally important to have an intelligent system of note-taking in place in order to preserve the ideas that you’ve gathered from your reading. The traditional way to take notes for a paper is to put them on 4x6" index cards, although some students may prefer to type them on their computers.

The topic of the card should be printed on the top left corner of the index card and the source of your information should be printed on the right along with the specific pages from which you have taken your notes. If you are planning to use a series of cards to take notes on the same topic and from the same source be sure to number your index cards sequentially.

Feel free to use the following samples as models for your own note-taking:

Avoiding Plagiarism

Many students are not aware that mixing an author’s phases or sentences with your own is still considered plagiarism. The best way to avoid this dangerous tendency is to completely rephrase the author’s ideas in your own words during the note-taking process. As you can see from the above sample note cards, I have intentionally summarized Plato’s ideas in very simple language. Where I thought that it would be necessary to use Plato’s own language, I have clearly put his own words in quotation marks with the appropriate reference to the text after it.

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