Reference materials, sometime called tertiary sources or background sources are often a useful place to start your research project. This category includes sources such as:
These sources can be a good starting place for your research, and a good place to return to throughout your research. They help you frame & contextualize your topic; introduce you to key terms, people, and timelines related to your topic; and often include very good bibliographies that you can use to start your research.
I recommend using the advanced search option our library website, where you can use a combination of keywords relevant to your subject area of interest, as well as keywords that focus on appropriate reference source types, such as:
Wikipedia is probably the reference source that most people know about - and it's true that many Wikipedia entries can be very good, and include useful bibliographies. But Wikipedia doesn't hold up to the level of rigor expected of your capstone, so I also suggest the following alternatives, which you can find in our library's databases. There is a full list of all our reference databases here - below is a selected list:
American National Biography (ANB) contains biographical essays and topical articles on the lives of noteworthy deceased Americans to the present. There are specially selected collections covering American Indian Heritage, Asian Pacific American Heritage, Black History, Hispanic Heritage, Women's History.
The Oxford Research Encyclopedias (OREs) offer long-form overview articles written, peer-reviewed, and edited by leading scholars. Each of the twenty-five distinct encyclopedias cover both foundational and cutting-edge topics in order to develop, over time, an anchoring knowledge base for major areas of research across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
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