Academic Guides: Evaluating Resources: Encyclopedias (2024)

FAQs

What is the best criteria for evaluating an encyclopedias? ›

Stability of high-quality articles

A key quality of good encyclopedias is that their articles change only with advances in their field, and do not spontaneously degrade.

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.

No library can afford to spend its budget on materials that aren't useful. Careful evaluation of the resources you purchase will give you the best of the best – a high quality collection, even though small, that meets the needs of your patrons.

Accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency and coverage are the five basic criteria for evaluating information from any sources. Is the information reliable? Is the information error-free? Is the information based on proven facts?

With this brief introduction to evaluating sources, we will use a list of five critical criteria: AAOCC (Authority, Accuracy, Objectivity, Currency, and Coverage).

Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.

- Britannica is highly used in Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences, compared to the other encyclopedias. Articles in these two subject areas may reference facts or definitions for historical or cultural topics, such as a citation to a Britannica article on the Palmer raids 1919-22 in the USA.

In general, information in the Encyclopedia Brittanica should count as reasonably reliable general information. You must cite it if you quote directly, and probably should in any case at all questionable.

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.

Is the Encyclopedia Britannica credible? ›

Britannica's content is among the most trusted in the world. Every article is written, and continually fact-checked, by our experts. Subscribe to Britannica Premium and unlock our entire database of trusted content today.

If a dictionary or encyclopedia entry has no author, the in-text citation should include the title of the entry. The title of the entry should be in quotation marks, with each word starting with a capital letter. The title of the entry will be followed by a comma and the year of publication.

Evaluating a dictionary from a faculty perspective can be an important task. A good dictionary should be comprehensive and easy to read, containing definitions that are clear and up-to-date. It should also include examples and context clues to help users understand the meanings of words.

Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by article name or by thematic categories, or else are hyperlinked and searchable. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries.

As you examine each source, it is important to evaluate each source to determine the quality of the information provided within it. Common evaluation criteria include: purpose and intended audience, authority and credibility, accuracy and reliability, currency and timeliness, and objectivity or bias.