LibGuides: College Writing II: Background Sources

The links below take you to background sources where you can work on choosing your topic or getting acquainted with your topic:

Places to look for Background Information

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
100 full-text reference resources covering most academic subject areas.
Credo Reference aggregates authoritative high-quality reference works for online delivery to libraries worldwide. UMass Lowell subscribes to 100 reference titles in Credo, with over 600 thousand entries, all fully integrated and intelligently cross-linked. Reference resources include Encyclopedias, handbooks, dictionaries, and atlases. Subjects covered in particular are history, health, world politics and culture, social sciences, music, literature, biology, education, and religion.
CQ Researcher This link opens in a new window
In-depth, original, comprehensive reporting and analysis on issues in the news.
Coverage: 1991 - current
Sage Knowledge This link opens in a new window
Encyclopedias and handbooks covering the Social Sciences.
Coverage: Publication dates 2000 - 2016
Biography in Context This link opens in a new window
Biographical information about current and historical people. Search for current or historic people by name, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, birth/death dates and places, or gender, or by keyword and full text. Narrative biographies provide an in-depth overview of the subject's life and accomplishments. In some cases, includes current magazine articles to expand coverage.
Global Issues In Context This link opens in a new window
Offers international viewpoints on a broad spectrum of global issues, topics, and current events.
Global Issues in Context features hundreds of continuously updated issue and country portals that bring together a variety of specially selected, highly relevant sources for analysis of social, political, military, economic, environmental, health, and cultural issues. Each of these gateway pages includes an overview, unique "perspectives" articles written by local experts, reference, periodical, primary source and statistical information. Rich multimedia - including podcasts, video, and interactive graphs - enhance each portal. Use Browse Issues and Topics, Country Finder, Basic Search or Advanced Search to explore the database.