Reference books provide background information on a topic, such as definitions of terms, key figures and events, and well written overviews. They can be a useful starting point for any research project, because they fill in missing knowledge about the topic or provide you with the language of the discipline.
Selected books from our Reference collection:
The Oxford Handbook of African American Citizenship, 1865-Present
The United States at war
Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in America
Encyclopedia of North American Colonies
The eighties in America
The Oxford companion to the Supreme Court of the United StatesFormerly known as the Blackwell Reference Online, here you will be provided with authoritative, scholarly reference sources (dictionaries, handbooks and companions) in the social sciences and humanities.
Titles include:
Encyclopedia of American urban history, Encyclopedia of immigration and migration in the American West, Encyclopedia of U.S. campaigns, elections, and electoral behavior, Encyclopedia of women in the American west, plus more.
Search selected dictionaries and encyclopedias from Oxford University Press:
Examples:
Examples:
"The Oxford English Dictionary is the accepted authority on the evolution of the English language over the last millennium. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. "
