Q: I don't understand my topic as well as I want; what can I read to understand it better?
A: Reference articles are good introductions to the important questions, events, and people within your topic and the vocabulary used by experts that can help you with later searches. These are often a good places to start your research. Here are two different ways to find reference articles.
On the Hostos Library homepage, this is the box you'll start with. You can search for a database, or explore the list of them, or you can enter search terms to use OneSearch.
1. Using a reference article-only database
You can use a database like Gale eBooks (formerly Gale Virtual Reference Library) to find background articles in academic encyclopedias, usually written by professors to provide an overview of a topic.
OR
2. Using OneSearch to find reference articles
In OneSearch, to limit your results to reference articles, use the "resource type" filter on the right and select "Reference Entries."
PLEASE NOTE: this list is arranged A-Z. If you don't see the words "Reference Resources" you need to click on "show more" to see the whole list.
