Suppose you are reading a scholarly journal, and the author refers to zoot suits. You're not sure just what this is. You can use a dictionary of American culture or history to learn just what a zoot suit is and find other references for more information. Back to Top Types of Background Sources 1. Biographical Sources 2.
Biographical resources provide about individuals.
Probably the best know tpye are the Who's Who series, which focus on providing basic information on famous persons. More specialized sources focus on a particular field, time period or ethnic group. Because of the wide variety of biographical resources available, it is best to start by consulting an index. This wonderful resource indexes several hundred biographical sources. You can look up an individual by name, and see if he or she has been written about.