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Encyclopedia of Bioethics

Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice

Encyclopedia of Economics

Encyclopedia of Native American Religions

Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Encyclopedia of Psychology

Encyclopedia of Unbelief

Encyclopedia of World Art

Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics

Macmillan Encyclopedia of Computers

Encyclopedia of Medical History

McGraw Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology

New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

Oxford English Dictionary

Most of the resources just listed also include book reviews. In addition, the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature locates reviews as well as articles in popular— general audience—publications such as Time and Newsweek. For a broader range of titles, you might also consult Book Review Index, Book Review Digest, and Subject Guide to Books in Print.

Indexes of Scholarly Journals

Nearly every discipline has its own major index, one most consulted by scholars. Here are just a few: MLA (literary criticism), ERIC (education), PsycInfo (psychology), Historical Abstracts (non-U.S. history), Sociological Abstracts (sociology), and PubMed (medicine).

When professors refer to bibliographic research, they probably mean research done with indexes. Again, these indexes are specific to particular subject areas. Their coverage is not broad, but deep and scholarly. These are the indexes to consult when seeking the most scholarly information in your area of study. Although the full text is often not included, the indexing provides information sufficient to track down the complete article.

These indexes are a great aid in evaluating the scholarly merit of a publication, as they usually eliminate any reference that isn’t considered scholarly by the academy. For example, MLA only indexes literary criticism that appears in peer-reviewed journals and academically affiliated books. So, consider the publications that appear in these indexes to have the academic “seal of approval.”

For more information on this crucial aspect of research, see the headings later in this chapter entitled “Subscriber-Only Databases” and “Four Steps Toward Productive Research Across the Disciplines.”

Finding Your Sources: Articles and Books

The resources above will not only provide you with an excellent overview of your topic, but also direct you to authoritative books and journal articles. The next step is to find out how to access the full text of those books and articles online or in print form. Your library’s online catalog will direct you to books in your local library. You may wish to take advantage of this time in the catalog to run a keyword search on your topic. Watch the subject headings that appear at the bottom of catalog records. You can click on these subject headings to guide you to more books highly relevant to your topic.

Don’t be concerned if many of the books that have been recommended in specialized dictionaries, encyclopedias, and indexes don’t appear in your library’s online catalog. The reference librarian can direct you to WorldCat, where you can request on interlibrary loan any book to be sent to you from another library for your perusal. This is a valuable service, as it makes available to you the research collections of large universities, all with the stroke of a key.

Journal articles are likely to be the next step in your research. You will need to find which articles are available in-house, online or in print, and which you will need to submit an interlibrary loan request for (in this case, unlike with books, you will receive a photocopy of the interlibrary loaned article to keep—no need to return it to the lending library). Your library’s online catalog will generally—though not always—provide you with a complete list of journals available electronically or in print. Just title search on the journal name, not the article title, in order to locate the journal. Ask a reference librarian for assistance in locating journals. He or she can also assist you in requesting on interlibrary loan any articles from journals your library does not have.

Finding