Encyclopaedias - Part Two: "Real" Enyclopaedias

Okay, so we've established that it's probably not a good idea to quote Wikipedia in your assignment.

But what about "real" encyclopaedias? What about Brittanica, Encarta and the rest?

Sadly, they're also on the list of things to avoid in an assignment.

Yes, I know that seems illogical. Sometimes the best information and quotes are in the encyclopaedia entry you found when you first started gathering information. Your lecturers still don't want you to use it.

Why? Well, there are a number of reasons:

• The information in encyclopaedias is fairly basic, and your lecturers want proof of a deeper level of research and understanding


• Using encyclopaedias is too easy. Someone else has done all the hard work of information gathering, but your lecturers want you to do that for yourself


• Tradition - encyclopaedias have never been accepted as a suitable source of information for academic research, so they probably never will


• Pride - we're too clever to resort to encyclopaedias

So, what should you do about encyclopaedias?

As I suggested in Part One, they do have their place in the research process. Look up your topic in an encyclopaedia to improve your basic knowledge, then use that basic knowledge to inform the rest of your research. You still won't be able to quote that fantastic sentence you found in the encyclopaedia entry, but you could probably use the "further reading" or "sources of information" section at the end of the entry to find something almost as useful.