After doing some searching, I have found that an encyclopedia is going to be more useful for my research project than a Wikipedia search. The pros to using an encyclopedia are that there is a lot information in one area and you can easily find out if the author is a credible source. There are however cons to them as well, they may be out of date or very restricted when searching for a topic. I was searching for prisoner release or anything of that nature and was only able to find 1 out of 4 books that actually had some information for me. Even though I couldn't find information for my project on Wikipedia, I still feel like there may be pros as well as cons to using the site. A pro is that it is easily accessible wherever you may be and most information seems to be pretty up-to-date. However, a huge con about Wikipedia is you never know if a source is very credible and/or trusted.
As I mentioned above, I found 4 encyclopedias about my topic but only 1 was relevant. I located these books by going to the library website and searching in the advanced search section for "prisoner AND encyclopedia", then went to the reference section of the actual library to locate the individual books.
I tried to search for an E-encyclopedia by going to the library website and in the advanced search I typed in "prisoner" and then below in the "collection" area I chose "reference-online" but there were no results.
So needless to say, I'll be sticking with the encyclopedia route for this research project since Wikipedia has nothing to offer and the encyclopedia actually had some interesting facts for me. Plus it was published by a credible company, even better!
About Me
- To Be Well-Diversified
- I'm 31 years old and have been married for 2 1/2 years. I was born in MN but call NJ home since I spent most of my life there. I like to think that I am a diversified individual but I'm thinking this blog may change some of my views.
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteFor research on prisoners, you are probably right when you say that the encyclopedia is better than Wikipedia. I took a look at the Wikipedia entry for "prisoners", and it did not have a lot of information in it.
What was the encyclopedia that you ended up using? What was the title of the encyclopedia entry?
Professor Wexelbaum
Hi Professor Wexelbaum,
ReplyDeleteThe encyclopedia that I used was "The Encyclopedia of American Prisons". I was able to find an entry entitled "Release from Prison- Trauma".
Sounds good...
ReplyDeleteYou may also want to take a look at an encyclopedia of criminal justice, as well as an encyclopedia of social problems....