Bypass Google - Reference tools you need, no search required

by Dolores Parker Sep 13th 2007

It's so easy to enter your search term in Google and see what shakes out. It's also a serious time waster and when you want results without culling though the spam links, it's better to go hunting with a rifle and get exactly what you want. Here are some reference sites Scholastici.us put together to help you be a sharpshooter and get the job done, hopefully a lot faster.

Bartleby - find fabulous quotes fast. Also contains poetry for easy reference.

Scholarpedia - articles written by experts and peer reviewed.

Citzendium - Still in beta, a wiki whose authors use their real names.

Wikiseek - a fast way to search Wikipedia.

Encyclopedia Brittanica - an oldie but still goodie. Authoritative texts you can rely on.

Fed Stats - full range of official statistical information produced by the Federal Government without having to know in advance which Federal agency produces which particular statistic.

Geo Hive - a statistic website filled mostly with population statistics of regions, countries, provinces and cities.

Book Rags - a compendium of literature summaries, ebooks, biographies, literary criticism, and essays, sourced from 20 education databases.

Math World - all things mathematics - billed as the web's most extensive math resource.

These should get you started on your journey to getting what you want fast, without wasting all your time in search mode. If you have other favorite resources, please share them with us in the comments section.

Tags: bartleby, book-rags, citizendium, encyclopedia-britannica, fed-stats, geo-hive, math-world, productivity, reference-sites-you- need, Reference-sites-you-Need, research, student-productivity, wikiseek

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Spencer Rosengarten said 12:58PM on 9-13-2007

As far as I'm concerned, Refdesk.com is the Grand-Mack-Daddy of Research Portals.

For those of us who want to jump further ahead on the journey to get what you want (without actually being handed the answers), I strongly recommend you check out http://www.refdesk.com.

Jordan Running said 1:28PM on 9-13-2007

Here's a link to the actual article, rather than the front page:

http://www.scholastici.us/2007/09/10/beyond-wikipedia-20-references-you-cant-do-without/

Eric Hoss said 6:36PM on 9-13-2007

In terms of sheer mass of periodical content (from local newspapers to peer-reviewed academic journals), it's hard to compete with AccessMyLibrary (http://www.accessmylibrary.com) -- nearly 30 million articles from over 4000 journals -- and all free with a library card.

Lisa Hoover said 10:43PM on 9-13-2007

Mahalo.com. Totally.

T said 6:54PM on 9-14-2007

Link to BookRags doesn't work, it's http://www.bookrags.com/

Adam said 10:19AM on 9-17-2007

Don't forget Questia.com - 70,000+ books and 1.7 million articles available for full-text search, reading and referencing.

Marc Telesha said 1:32PM on 9-17-2007

Books Rags is a pay for site.

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