What kind of source is an encyclopedia? Is it considered “scholarly”? (2024)

FAQs

What kind of source is an encyclopedia? Is it considered “scholarly”? ›

Encyclopedias are considered scholarly sources if the content is written by an academic for an academic audience. Encyclopedia entries are reviewed by an editorial board but they are not peer-reviewed.

Most professors that ask for scholarly sources are looking for articles from academic, peer-reviewed journals. Using this definition, encyclopedia articles do not qualify. For assistance finding scholarly articles from academic, peer-reviewed journals, please contact a librarian.

Scholarly sources can be either primary or secondary research. They can also come in many different formats. Books, articles, and websites can all be scholarly.

Encyclopedias are often called tertiary sources, but sometimes they can be secondary sources or primary sources. They compile information from trusted experts and produce short entries on each item.

To cite an online encyclopedia entry in APA Style, start with the author of the entry (if listed), followed by the publication year, the entry title, the name of the editor, the encyclopedia name, the edition, the publisher, and the URL.

Description: Encyclopedia.com has more than 100 trusted sources, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses including The Columbia Encyclopedia, Oxford's World Encyclopedia, and the Encyclopedia of World Biography.

Therefore, encyclopedias are reliable sources of information because they have been edited by experts in various fields. There are two types of encyclopedias: general and specialized subject encyclopedias. General encyclopedias, such as World Book, provide concise overviews on a wide variety of topics.

Non-scholarly sources: Might be written by a professional writer who is not an expert in the field. Don't always name the authors. Are written about events, and political, moral, or ethnic opinions. Use ordinary language because they are aimed at a general audience.

What are the 4 types of encyclopedias? ›

There are different types of encyclopedias. Mainly they are divided into four types, namely Dictionaries, Comprehensive Encyclopaedia or Vishwakosh, Encyclopaedic literature or Koshsadrush and Indexes.

Trust Britannica Library as a reliable source with objective, fact-check, and unbiased content that is written by experts and vetted through rigorous editorial process.

A primary source is an original document "created or experienced contemporaneously with the event being researched." Interviews, reports, speeches, tweets, blogs, or diary entries are good examples of primary sources. A subject encyclopedia is not a primary source, but rather a secondary source.

An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, is a digital encyclopedia accessible through the Internet. Examples include Encarta from 2000 to 2009, Wikipedia since 2001, the Encyclopædia Britannica since 2016, and Encyclopedia.com since 1998.

Legal encyclopedias offer broad and general commentary on a wide range of federal and state law. These secondary sources are useful as a starting point for researching unfamiliar areas of law.

Tertiary literature consists of a distillation and collection of primary and secondary sources such as textbooks, encyclopedia articles, and guidebooks or handbooks.

Britannica's content is among the most trusted in the world.

Websites produced by government departments, representing industry bodies, universities or research centers often contain useful information such as statistics, policies, reports and case studies and are considered scholarly. You can limit your search by domain (. gov, . edu., .

Authors of articles in general encyclopedias, or encyclopedias that cover all subject areas (such as the Encyclopedia Britannica), are not always listed. There are few situations in which you would list an entire encyclopedia in your references; you will need to list the individual article(s) that you consulted.

The online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica is a trusted source used by more than 4,755 universities worldwide, including Yale, Harvard and Oxford. The site includes access to all 32 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, a dictionary, a thesaurus, newspaper and magazine articles and a world atlas.