Background Sources
Subject specific reference materials can help you to gain broad-based knowledge of your field through vocabulary, factual information, additional references, and bibliographies.
A subject search in JumboSearch allows you to retrieve specific types of sources. For example:
- Child Development - Encyclopedias
- Child Rearing - Encyclopedias
- Developmental Disabilities - Dictionaries
Examples of useful reference titles:
CREDO Reference
Dozens of online reference books from numerous publishers. Includes audio and images. One example is the Handbook of Research on the Education of Young Children. You can also browse by subject.
Encyclopedia of Adolescence. Features over 140 signed and peer-reviewed entries, including content on normative development, individual differences, cultural differences, social and emotional development, education, work, and psychopathlogy as they apply to adolescents.
Encyclopedia of Child Behavior and Development. A full-text e-book published in 2011.
Encyclopedia of Infant and Early Childhood Development (print only)
Encyclopedia of Language and Education. A 10-volume set, published in 2008. Fulltext online.
Internet Archive. According to the New York Times, as of September 18, 2012, "the archive’s online collection will include every morsel of news produced in the last three years by 20 different channels, encompassing more than 1,000 news series that have generated more than 350,000 separate programs devoted to news."
National Center for Media Engagement. Funded by the Center for Public Broadcasting, the National Center for Media Engagement is dedicated to supporting "public media organizations nationwide in engaging their communities."
Sage Reference encyclopedias
These electronic encyclopedias cover topics such as juvenile justice, terrorism, social theory, crime, African American society, social welfare, education and many more themes. One example is the Encyclopedia of Human Development.
Sage Research Methods Online
Full-text access to books, journals, and encyclopedias that cover the design and use of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed research methods in the social and behavioral sciences.
Vanderbilt Television News Archives. Access to online video from Vanderbilt's archive collection of CNN material only, plus abstracts for the remainder of the collection which holds more than 30,000 individual network evening news broadcasts from the major U.S. national broadcast networks and more than 9,000 hours of special news-related programming.
