Why use Specialized Encyclopedias?
Subject Encyclopedias are great for
- choosing a topic
- educating yourself quickly
- perspective on a topic
- variant spellings, vocabulary, terminology
- bibliographies of critical sources
Oxford Reference
-
Oxford Handbooks Online: Scholarly Research ReviewsThe complete texts of the Oxford handbooks in Archaeology, Business and Management, Classical Studies, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Economics and Finance, History, Law, Linguistics, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, and Religion online.
-
Oxford Research Encyclopedias (OREs)Extremely high quality set of online encyclopedias covering all disciplines, time periods, global in coverage.
-
Oxford Very Short Introductions Online100 page introductions (with blbliography) on various topics.
-
Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO)Annotated bibliographies of primary and secondary sources written by top scholars in the field.
Cambridge Histories Online
Excellent resource. Full text. Chapters as pdfs. Extremely high quality essays with rich footnotes and bibliography.
Popular Culture
-
WikipediaFor popular culture topics such as television shows, Wikipedia is a good starting point for factual info. The references/sources at the bottom of an article, however, are often not scholarly. Use the library's catalog and/or databases to find scholarly sources.
-
St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture
Publication Date: 2013Covers topics and persons in major areas of popular culture: film; music; print culture; social life; sports; television and radio; and art and performance (which include theater, dance, stand-up comedy, and other live performance).
