Database: Oxford Reference
Picture from www.oxfordreference.com
If you looking for information on a person, verifying a fact, or trying to find the definition of a concept or a term Oxford Reference is a good place to start.
Bringing together about 2 million digitized entries across Oxford Dictionaries, Companions and Encyclopedias, you will find authoritative answers here.
What’s inside the collections?
As you browse through Oxford Reference, you will find results that range from short entries and general reference to more in-depth articles on specialized subjects.
Two collections are displayed:
- Oxford Quick Reference which consists of short entries from more than 135 academic subject, language and quotations dictionaries. Contents are updated monthly and best for checking facts and looking up terms.
- Oxford Reference Library which consists of more than 200 in-depth, specialized titles from Oxford’s Encyclopedias and Companions and from selected scholarly works of partner publishers. New titles and editions are added throughout the year, as they are published in print. Best for conducting more comprehensive research on a specific topic, drawing from in-depth articles.
Beside all the dictionaries, encyclopedias and companions you will find discovery tools useful for your research, e.g., overview pages (at-a-glance subject pages defining the unique term), timelines, and quotations.
Bilingual dictionaries
If you are looking for bilingual dictionaries, you will find them in Oxford Reference. Click "Reference type" in the toolbar and chose bilingual dictionaries.
Thus, if you need an English dictionary, just click "Reference type" -> "English dictionaries" to see the collection.
You may also want to try out the Oxford English Dictionary, which is major English-language dictionary focusing on historical information and also providing useful linguistic and grammatical background information.
Also check out the Oxford Dictionary widget, a clever tool that allows you to see Oxford English Dictionary definitions by simply double-clicking a word in any website. You need to install it in your browser, learn how.
Oxford Reference and OED are available both on and off campus. Off-campus access requires you to log in using your CBS credentials.