The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (hereafter SEP) is a free online encyclopedia of philosophy run and maintained by Stanford University. Each entry is written and maintained by an expert in the field, including professors from over 65 academic institutions worldwide. Apart from its online status, the encyclopaedia maintains the traditional academic approach, used in most encyclopaedias and academic journals, achieving quality by means of: Look up Free on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Free is an English language adjective, verb, and adverb. ... Online means being connected to the Internet or another similar electronic network, like a bulletin board system. ... 1913 advertisement for Encyclopædia Britannica. ... Philosophy is a discipline or field of study involving the investigation, analysis, and development of ideas at a general, abstract, or fundamental level. ... For other meanings of Stanford, see Stanford (disambiguation). ... An expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of knowledge, technique, or skill whose judgement is accorded authority and status by the public or their peers. ... A professor is a senior teacher, lecturer and researcher, usually in a college or university. ... Academic institution is an educational institution dedicated to higher education and research, which grants academic degrees. ... A journal (through French from late Latin diurnalis, daily) is a daily record of events or business. ...

• the use of specialist authors
• selected by an editor or an editorial committee which is competent (though not necessarily a specialist) in the field covered by the encyclopedia
• the use of peer review.

The SEP was created in 1995 by Edward N. Zalta, with the explicit aim of providing a dynamic encyclopedia which was updated regularly, and so did not become dated in the manner of print encyclopedias. The charter for the encyclopedia allows for rival articles on a single topic to allow irreconcilable conflicts amongst scholars to be reflected in a scholarly manner. A specialist is one with special training, for example an educational specialist (Ed. ... do i even know who you are??? // Headline text Bold textAn Editor is a person who prepares text—typically language, but also images and sounds—for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it. ... Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a scholarly process used in the publication of manuscripts and in the awarding of funding for research. ... Edward N. Zalta is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for the Study of Language and Information. ...

By several measures, such as by citation rankings, the SEP is easily the most successful and prestigious internet resource on philosophy. A citation index keeps track of which articles in scientific journals cite which other articles. ...

External links

• Homepage of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy;
• A Solution to the Problem of Updating Encyclopedias - an article by Hammer and Zalta outlining the scholarly problem the SEP was created to address.