Specialized encyclopedias contain background information on a topic and can give you ideas for narrowing your topic.
Below is a small sample of encyclopedias on criminal justice that the WMU Libraries has.
Try these databases to search through many encyclopedias at once:
Full-text online from over 400 encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference books. Search a topic, build a concept map, or browse information sources organized by subject. Find text, images, sound files, sortable data tables and more.
Online reference books in business, education, law, medicine, religion and social science.
More than 200 dictionaries, encyclopedias, language reference and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press. In addition to text, some sources include maps, illustrations, and Web links. Users can search one resource, a group of selected resources, or all of them at once. Regularly updated.
This subscription is limited to five simultaneous users. Please log out when finished.
Included in this database are the following titles:
Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment
Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages
The Oxford Classical Dictionary
The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation