This post is part of my series of suggestions for younger colleagues and students. I put here all the pieces of good advice I would have loved to hear while I was in their position…

From time to time, a student asks me to give them a complete bibliography on a given topic. I tend to comply, but in case you are not my student, here is how you can at least get started. For simplicity’s sake, let us assume that your topic is apoha in Dharmottara:

• Check on JSTOR with your keywords (apoha and Dharmottara).
• Check on Academia.edu with your keywords.
• Check on Research Gate with the same keywords.
• Check on Google books….
• Check on Google scholar….
• Check on Archive.org….
• Select first papers and books written by authors who are themselves in the Academia. Being in the Academia does not mean being necessarily better, but statistically the percentage of weirdos is higher outside Academia and if you are still not an expert in the topic, you will not be able to distinguish between genuine scholarship and ungrounded lucubrations. Once you know your topic well enough, you can start reading also eccentric works and evaluate them.
• Check the bibliography of the papers or books you selected.
• Go to a specialised library: Many libraries have a catalogue working on the basis of keywords also and many have open shelves dedicated to a given topic (say, Buddhist epistemology or Buddhist philosophy of language).
• Don’t ask a professor until you have done all or some of the above. It is not fair to assume that your professors have all the free time you don’t have! They are probably way more busy than you and you have to show them that you know how to find your way through bibliographies before needing an advanced help.

What do readers recommend to their students? What works for you?