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ENGL 101: Monk, M. (Spring 2025): Reference sources (encyclopedias)

Search for reference (background information) in Gale eBooks

1. Search for information about your topic, or the foundations of your topic, generally

Keep it simple, scholar! Reference books, such as encyclopedias and subject dictionaries, generally provide a wide view of a topic, rather than exploring a topic in specific detail.

Reference books, such as those found in Gale e-Books, offer thousands of articles, from hundreds of individual books, and are a great place to start your research because they offer:

  • A great foundation of basic knowledge about the foundations of your topics
  • Vocabulary that is important to your topics that you can:
    • use in your papers and
    • use to search for additional related information about your topics
  • and it can be a good source of ideas about how you might narrow your topics.

The search example below demonstrates one way you can begin researching the basics of your topic, by first understanding how a "hobby" is defined, and the significance of hobbies. Into the Gale eBooks search field, you could simply type "hobbies."

screen shot of gale ebooks search with "hobbies" typed into the search field, annotation that reads "search reference with a simple key word"

2. Select relevant articles from multiple points of view, or "lenses"

screen shot showing some results from the search above for "hobbies" - includes two relevant articles about hobbies through the lens of leisure studies, and through the lens of child development. One article is noted as not relevant as it is about a person with the name, "Hobby."

3. Choose an article - read it, but also, look around to find out what else the page can do for you!

screen shot showing an article in Gale Ebooks, notation pointing out the article title, the book the article comes from, and where to get the citation and the durable link for the article.

4. You can also try searching for specific hobbies, avocations, passions

While I can't guarantee that Gale eBooks will have coverage of your specific hobby, avocation, or passion project, it's worth trying it out!

screenshot showing a search for a specific hobby in Gale eBooks, archery, showing 2 examples of resulting articles

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