Most of us have probably used a general encyclopedia in high school, or own one at home. General encyclopedias are written for the average layperson and are targeted for junior and senior high school students. We will not cover general encyclopedias in this Tutorial . However, general encyclopedias can be quite valuable for gathering background information on a topic. The other type of encyclopedia is known as a subject encyclopedia.
Subject encyclopedias come in all shapes and sizes.
Some are one or two volumes in length and others can have as many as twenty volumes or more. Subject encyclopedias cover specific subject areas and are designed for the educated reader. The articles in subject encyclopedias are produced by scholars in the field and usually provide an in-depth bibliography. Subject encyclopedias are published on just about any topic imaginable. Here are just a few of the subject encyclopedias own by the MCTC library.