Some Excellent Free General Reference Sites on the Web

Compiled by Marcia Kemble, Director of Library & Media Services, Mid-Pacific Institute, Honolulu, HI

rev. Oct. 17, 2007

 

TIP: Rather than directly clicking on the links below, RIGHT-click with your mouse (Mac users: Cntrl-click)

and from the pop-up menu, choose to "Open Link in New Tab."  Then, to quickly get back to this page, just close

the new tab.

 

ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIAS

Encarta Concise Encyclopedia  (shorter articles than the full Encarta, which you must pay to use, but still good)

http://encarta.msn.com/

Columbia Encyclopedia (from Bartleby)

http://bartleby.com/65/

Columbia Encyclopedia (from Yahoo)

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/

Wikipedia (use with caution: anyone can write/edit the entries, so there are no guarantees of accuracy, and the quality of the articles varies)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

 

DICTIONARIES AND THESAURI  (Cool feature: many have audible pronunciation of words)

American Heritage Dictionary (from Yahoo)

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/index.html

Merriam-Webster Online

http://www.m-w.com/netdict.htm

OneLook Dictionary (multiple dictionaries)

http://www.onelook.com/

OneLook Reverse Dictionary (finds your word/s in the defintion)

http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml

 

Dictionary.com (multiple dictionaries)

http://www.dictionary.com/

YourDictionary.com (uses American Heritage)

http://www.yourdictionary.com/

Cambridge Dictionaries Online (simplified for ESL students) (note options in the pull-down menu)

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/

The Newbury House Online Dictionary

http://nhd.heinle.com/

SPECIALIZED DICTIONARIES:

The Phrase Finder -- Phrases, Sayings, and Idioms

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/index.html

Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/Default.asp?dict=I

RhymeZone (rhyming dictionary & also finds synonyms, antonyms, homophones, related words, etc.)

http://www.rhymezone.com/

Medical Dictionary (from Medicinenet.com)

http://www.medterms.com/script/main/hp.asp

Encyberpedia (multiple specialized dictionaries)

http://www.encyberpedia.com/glossary.htm

 

COMBINED REFERENCE SOURCES  

Infoplease (Encyc., Dict. & more)

http://www.infoplease.com/

Bartleby.com (Encyc, Dict. & more)

http://bartleby.com/

Yahoo! Reference

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/

Refdesk.com (Facts & reference)

http://refdesk.com/

 

ALMANACS  & QUICK FACTS  (statistics, etc.)

Infoplease Almanac

http://www.infoplease.com/almanacs.html

Fast Facts (from Gary Price)

http://www.freepint.com/gary/handbook.htm

Quick Facts (from Librarian's Index to the Internet)

http://search.lii.org/index.jsp?more=SubTopic10

Official Statistics on the Web (from Univ. of Auckland)  (statistics about countries/regions of the world)

http://www.library.auckland.ac.nz/subjects/stats/offstats/

 

A TOTALLY COOL WEBSITE            

How Stuff Works

http://www.howstuffworks.com/

 

ENGLISH GRAMMAR AND STYLE GUIDES

Common Errors in English

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/

Guide to Grammar and Writing

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

AskOxford -- Grammar tips

http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/classicerrors/grammartips/

AskOxford -- Commonly Confused Words

http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/classicerrors/confused/

AskOxford -- Spelling Tips

http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/classicerrors/spellingtips/

Columbia Guide to Standard American English

http://www.bartleby.com/68/

English Grammar & Style Page (from CLN)

http://www.cln.org/themes/eng_grammar.html

Univ. at Albany Style Guides (guidelines for citing sources in MLA, APA, and Chicago styles)

http://library.albany.edu/reference/style.html

 

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

GENERAL:

Biography.com

http://www.biography.com/

Who2

http://www.who2.com/

Women's biographies

http://www.DistinguishedWomen.com/

Women In American History (from Encyc. Britannica)

http://search.eb.com/women/

Black History--Biographies (from Encyc. Britannica)

http://search.eb.com/blackhistory/

AUTHORS:

Authors (from the Yahoo directory)

http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/Literature/Authors/

Authors (from Open Directory)

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Literature/Authors/

Authors (contemporary)  (from About.com directory)

http://contemporarylit.about.com/cs/authors/

Authors (from Interent Public Library)

http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/hum60.10.00/

 

CALCULATIONS & CONVERSIONS

Conversion & Calculation Center

http://www.convertit.com/Go/ConvertIt/

Yahoo -- Weights & Measures

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/weights_and_measures/

Yahoo -- Online converters

http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/Measurements_and_Units/Conversion/Online_Converters/

Measure 4 Measure

http://www.wolinskyweb.net/measure.htm

 

MAPS AND ATLASES

Merriam-Webster's Atlas

http://www.m-w.com/maps/moremapsnyt.html

Infoplease Atlas

Infoplease Atlas -- Map Index

http://www.infoplease.com/atlas/

http://www.infoplease.com/atlas/mapindex.html

Encarta Dynamic Atlas

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/MapCenter/Map.aspx

Lonely Planet Destinations

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/

World Maps from About.com

http://geography.about.com/library/maps/blindex.htm

WorldAtlas.com

WorldAtlas.com -- Quick world facts

http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/world.htm

http://www.worldatlas.com/geoquiz/thelist.htm

Microsoft Expedia Maps

http://maps.expedia.com/QuickMaps.asp

Maps.com – Reference (both political and physical maps)

http://www.maps.com/maps.aspx?nav=RM

National Geographic Map Machine

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/maps/index.html

Xpeditions -- Nat'l Geographic's printable maps

http://www.nationalgeographic.org/xpeditions/atlas/

U.S. Gazetteer

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/gazetteer

 

HAWAII NEWSPAPERS

HonoluluAdvertiser.com

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com

Honolulu Star-Bulletin Online

http://starbulletin.com/

Honolulu Weekly

http://www.honoluluweekly.com/

 

ONLINE MAGAZINES BY TOPIC

NewsDirectory.com -- Magazines by topic

http://www.newsdirectory.com/listmag.php

Internet Public Library -- Magazines, journals, e-Zines

http://www.ipl.org/div/serials/

 

ONLINE MAGAZINES BY PLACE

NewsDirectory.com (see “Magazines by Region” section in right column)

http://www.newsdirectory.com/index.php

 

ONLINE NEWSPAPERS BY PLACE (all listed below have both English and native language papers)

Kiosken -- World Newspapers

http://www.esperanto.se/kiosk/engindex.html

Internet Public Library -- Online Newspapers

http://www.ipl.org/div/news/

RefDesk.com -- Newspapers 

http://www.refdesk.com/paper.html

NewsDirectory.com -- Newspapers

http://www.newsdirectory.com/listnews.php

Today's Front Pages (shows an image of the front page of each newspaper's print version)

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

 

CURRENT NEWS & NEWS SEARCH

Google News

http://news.google.com/

Yahoo News

http://news.yahoo.com/

World News Network

http://www.wn.com/

Alta Vista News Search

http://news.altavista.com/

AllTheWeb News Search

http://www.alltheweb.com/?c=news

Ananova

http://www.ananova.com/search/

HeadlineSpot

http://www.headlinespot.com/

 

MAGAZINE ARTICLE SEARCH

EBSCOhost--via Hawaii State Library

(Only for Hawaii residents with a library card.  Scroll down to the EBSCOhost database you'd like to use, click on its title, and enter your HSPLS library card number to gain access.)

http://www.state.hi.us/libraries/hsl/databases.html

FindArticles.com

http://www.findarticles.com/

 

HEALTH INFORMATION

Medline Plus (health info for nonprofessionals from U.S. National Library of Medicine & National Institutes of Health)

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/

 

Healthfinder (from U.S. government)

http://www.healthfinder.gov/

U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services

http://hhs.gov/

Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

http://www.cdc.gov/

TeensHealth.org

http://kidshealth.org/teen/

4Girls Health (health info for girls)

http://www.4girls.gov/

 

FAMOUS QUOTATIONS

The Quotations Page

http://www.quotationspage.com/

Bartleby.com -- Quotations

http://www.bartleby.com/quotations/

Yahoo! - Reference:Quotations

http://dir.yahoo.com/reference/quotations

About.com -- Quotations

http://quotations.about.com/

Quoteland.com

http://www.quoteland.com/

QuoteWorld.org

http://www.quoteworld.org/

 LitQuote -- Literary Quotations

http://www.litquotes.com/quote_topic.php

 

 

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