8 Reference Sources that are NOT Wikipedia

Posted by makeuseof writer Mark O’Neill

As Wikipedia grows more and more in momentum, people will start to use Wikipedia as their one and only source of information (of which I am becoming increasingly guilty of). But the internet doesn’t begin and end with Wikipedia.

Here’s some other reference websites worth a look, sites you can make use of.

1. Dictionary.com - One of my favourites. Also includes Thesaurus.com and Reference.com. Has email subscription services and RSS feeds.

2. About.com - This site has become much more commercialized over the years with more and more advertising. But nevertheless, you can find a wealth of information on numerous subjects, with more subjects being added all the time.

3. How Stuff Works - Have you ever wondered how something works or why something happens the way it does? How Stuff Works will explain. Numerous categories and easy-to-understand information.

4. The Straight Dope - Ask your meaningful questions to Cecil and he might just answer them. Cecil has a huge database and he answers some extremely interesting questions such as “Who has the power to arrest the president?” and “can I declare a no-fly zone over my house?”

5. Dict.cc - Being in Germany and learning the German language, I love this website. It is a Wikipedia style English-German dictionary where people can edit the definitions if they don’t agree with them. Cue lots of online linguistic arguments! I really like Dict.cc because you find lots of obscure terms and slang that you wouldn’t normally find in a regular dictionary.

6. The New York Public Library - The New York Public Library has built an online picture collection of 30,000 digitised images from books, magazines and newspapers as well as original photographs, prints and postcards. An absolutely amazing collection.

There are also a couple of previously published MakeUseOf posts that you may want to have a look at

• Top 10: Free and Highly Trafficked Q&A Communities
• Massive List of ‘HowTo’ Sites + ‘HowTo’ Search Engine

Mark O’Neill is a freelance writer, proofreader, editor and blogger. Check out his blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

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