What Reference Sources Are
Reference sources include materials like encyclopedias, dictionaries, and handbooks/manuals that are designed to provide background information on a topic. They contain short articles, usually in alphabetical order, summarizing the essential information about a topic for a non-expert reader. Due to their broad coverage of basic information often left out of more specialized research papers, they are perfect for investigating potential research topics and starting out on a new research project.
Popular Reference eBooks
- Oxford English Dictionary Online This link opens in a new windowHistorical dictionary of English, covering use of words from earliest times to present day.
- DSM-5-TR This link opens in a new windowThe Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision, an essential psychiatric reference book.
Reference Databases
All Subjects
- Biography Reference Center This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive collection of biographies on notable personalities.
- CQ Researcher This link opens in a new windowExplores a single hot issue in the news each week, covering 44 topics, including expanded reports. Especially useful for pro/con presentation of issues currently being discussed. This is an excellent place to search for term paper topics.
- Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia This link opens in a new windowThis database provides over 25,000 encyclopedic entries covering a variety of subject areas.
- Gale eBooks This link opens in a new windowA collection of online reference books on a variety of subjects. Our collection is especially strong in Education, General Science, Medicine, and Social Sciences.
- Gale Opposing Viewpoints in Context This link opens in a new windowOpposing Viewpoints in Context helps students research, analyze and organize a broad variety of data on today’s hottest social issues for conducting research, completing writing assignments, preparing for debates, creating presentations and more.
- Sage Knowledge Reference This link opens in a new windowOffers access to selected reference encyclopedias, handbooks, and videos with coverage mostly in the areas of social sciences and health care. NOTE - Search results are best when filtered by "Content available to me" to show only articles that are accessible to Utah Tech affiliates.
- Salem Press Reference Shelf This link opens in a new windowReference resources for psychology, health, historical topics, and literary criticism.
Arts & Humanities
- ARTstor This link opens in a new windowCurated collections of art images and associated data for scholarly use. Includes links to art images in museum collections and reference materials.
- History Reference Center This link opens in a new windowProvides full text for reference books, encyclopedias, non-fiction books, and periodicals from leading history publishers.
- Literary Reference Center This link opens in a new windowProvides a broad spectrum of information on thousands of authors and their works across literary disciplines and timeframes. Features a collection of author biographies, plot summaries and work overviews, full-text essays from leading publishers, literary reference books and monographs, cover-to-cover full text for literary magazines and journals, book reviews, poems, short stories, classic texts, author interviews, and more.
- Music Online This link opens in a new windowDatabase with streaming audio, video, reference, and scores. Includes the collections African American Music Reference, American Song, Classical Music Library, Classical Music Reference Library, Classical Scores Library, Contemporary World Music, Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Jazz Music Library, Smithsonian Global Sound, Dance in Video, and Opera in Video.
- Oxford Reference Online - Premium This link opens in a new windowLanguage and subject reference works from Oxford Press into single cross searchable reference.
- Poetry & Short Story Reference Center This link opens in a new windowA collection of full-text poetry, short stories, and supplemental content, offering users a historically rich collection of hundreds of thousands of poems, as well as biographies and authoritative essays on such topics as poetic forms, movements and techniques.
Business & Marketing
- MarketLine Company Profiles Authority This link opens in a new windowProfiles for 10,000 companies. Information includes business description, company history, products and services, key employee/biographies, revenue and SWOT analysis and top competitors.
- Market Share Reporter This link opens in a new windowProvides access to the Market Share Reporter, a source of comparative business statistics. Each entry features a descriptive title; data and market description; a list of producers/products along with their market share; and cites original sources.
- Mergent Intellect This link opens in a new windowA web-based application that features a collection of worldwide business information including access to international business data, industry news, facts and figures, executive contact information, the ability to access industry profiles, and more. It als includes marketing data including demographic, residential, and consumer data.
- ReferenceUSA This link opens in a new windowA business and marketing research database containing up-to-date data on 83 million US businesses and 271 million consumers.
Law
- Legal Information Reference Center This link opens in a new windowProvides online full text for many of the top consumer legal reference books, hundreds of full-text publications and thousands of legal forms.
Science & Medicine
- Biomedical Reference Collection: Basic This link opens in a new windowFull-text reference database including over 100 medical titles covering disciplines that include clinical medicine, nursing, dentistry, and health sciences.
- Nursing Reference Center Plus This link opens in a new windowThis resource can be used to get answers to questions quickly, access care plans, watch video demonstrations, strengthen nursing skills, earn continuing education credits and much more.
- Science Reference Center This link opens in a new windowProvides full text for hundreds of science encyclopedias, reference books, periodicals, and other sources. Topics covered in Science Reference Center include biology, chemistry, earth and space science, environmental science, health and medicine, life science, mathematics, physics, science and society, science as inquiry, scientists, technology, and wildlife.
