Research Tips
Use Reference databases to identify and access encyclopedias and other sources to find background information on your research topics.
In the Library Catalog combine keywords like "encyclopedia" or "dictionary" or "handbook" or "guidebook" or "introduction" with other keywords related to your topic.
Look for bibliographies and cross-references at the end of encyclopedia articles.
Use words and phrases that you find in your encyclopedias as keywords in new searches in the Library Catalog, Google, or other subject databases.
Online Dictionaries
Use Google for quick checks on spelling and definitions.
(e.g. define sestina or def sestina)
For more detailed analysis, use the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
To Wiki or Not to Wiki?
You have all used Wikipedia. It can be a good starting place for your research, but dare to explore further....
There are thousands of both general and specialized subject encyclopedias--digital and print.
If you need information on a topic that you are not familiar with, try starting with an encyclopedia article to learn essential facts, figures, and background on your subject.
Digital and Analog Encyclopedias
Use these Reference databases to find and access articles in a variety of encyclopedias and subject dictionaries:
A searchable collection containing 100 reference sources including subject dictionaries, encyclopedias, biographical sources and quotations. Contains over 150,000 entries of facts, words, concepts, and people.
A database of full text reference encylopedias and dictionaries for the Arts, Business, History, Law, Medicine, Religion, and Social Sciences.
This databases contains over 100 language and subject dictionaries and reference works of Oxford University Press. Covers general reference, language, science and medicine, humanities and social sciences, business and professional subjects.
A searchable database of back-of-the-book indexes to subject encyclopedias and other reference works in a wide variety of subject areas. Search the contents of more than 4,500 reference titles.
Mystery Encyclopedias
- American Mystery and Detective Novels: A Reference Guide - Larry Landrum
"This reference provides a selective guide to the important criticism of American mystery and detective novels and presents general features of the genre and its historical development over the past two centuries. Critical approaches covered in the volume include story as game, images, myth criticism, formalism and structuralism, psychoanalysis, Marxism and more. Comparisons with related genres, such as gothic, suspense, gangster, and postmodern novels, illustrate similarities and differences important to the understanding of the unique components of mystery and detective fiction." - The Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery - Bruce F. Murphy
"...contains entries on authors, characters, individual works, terminology, famous criminal cases, slang, subgenres, and plot devices, murder techniques and poisons, all of which are part of the matter and manner and context of crime and murder literature." (intro) Includes bibliographies. - The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing - Rosemary Herbert, ed.
Alphabetically arranged compendium of signed articles on themes, terms, concepts, genres, character types and writers integral to the mystery. A selected bibliography is appended to most entries. Includes a glossary and an index.
Subject Guides to More Literature and Film Resources
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