Click on the book cover to check out the dictionary of American History.
Dictionaries can help you by:
Once you narrow down your topic you will find more dictionaries, guidebooks, and encyclopedias that are specific to different eras or places in history.
Encyclopedias are collections of articles or short overviews of different topics. They can give you background and overviews and help you figure out where to start with your research. They have similarities and differences from Wikipedia. If you read the section of this guide called Credible Sources, you will understand some of the differences between Wikipedia and Library Encyclopedias in terms of the requirements to use scholarly, peer-reviewed, or credible sources for your assignments. Wikipedia is familiar and easy to use, but the articles themselves aren't scholarly or credible. You wouldn't cite to a wikipedia article. The Encyclopedias in the Library are written by subject experts, so they can be used as credible or sometimes scholarly sources (depending on what kind of scholarly sources your assignment requires).
Check out the list of some online encyclopedias below. The search boxes for these encyclopedias are very much like the search boxes for journal databases. For guidance and tips to make searching easier, check out the videos and the journal articles page of this guide.