GSU Library Research Guides: Religion in the American South: Getting Started: Reference: Encyclopedias & More

Reference Sources

Use Reference Sources, such as encyclopedias, to get a general overview of your topic. Reference sources are not intended to be read cover-to-cover, but rather provide you with more concise information as you begin to explore a topic. Reference sources generally provide several things:

Background information about a topic.
Brief, factual overviews of topics.
Information about important dates, events, and people associated with a topic.
Terminology and definitions of terms related to a topic.
Articles written by authors with expertise in the subject matter.
Bibliographies of sources for further reading.

Searching for Reference Sources

Different types of reference sources answer different types of questions.

These are common types of reference sources for research in Religious Studies:

Atlas - Maps and geographical information.
Dictionary - Definitions of terms, either general or in relation to a specific subject or discipline.
Encyclopedia - Comprehensive summaries of factual information, providing more detail than a dictionary.
Handbook - Concise explanatory information on a topic.

To find reference books on a particular topic, tradition, etc., try a search like this in GILFind, the library's catalog, using the Advanced Search option:

"Encyclopedia," "dictionary," and "handbook" are all terms that will point you towards reference books.

The ORs connecting those terms mean that you are asking for all results that include any of those three words.

If you had linked them with AND, you would only get results that used ALL of those three words.

The AND connecting the two search boxes means that you are asking for results that include

any of the three terms in the first box AND the term in the second box.

(Click on the image to see the results of this search!)

Selected Reference Sources

The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture by Charles Reagan Wilson et al., editors
Publication Date: 2006-2013
Electronic book

Gale eBooks This link opens in a new window
Select "Religion" from the menu at the left. Provides access to numerous online encyclopedias, including the Encyclopedia of Religion, the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, the Encyclopaedia of Judaica, Encyclopedia of Religion in America, and Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religion (8th ed.)

Encyclopedia of Religion in the South by Samuel S. Hill, Charles H. Lippy, and Charles Reagan Wilson, eds.
Publication Date: 2005 (2nd ed.)
Call Number: Atlanta Library North 5, BR 535 .E52 2005
The Dictionary of Pan-African Pentecostalism, Volume 1: North America by Estrelda Y. Alexander, ed.
Publication Date: 2018
Electronic resource
Encyclopedia of Muslim-American History by Facts on File
part of GALE eBooks
Encyclopedia of African American Religions by Larry G. Murphy, J. Gordon Melton, Gary L. Ward, editors
Publication Date: 1993
Call Number: Atlanta Library North 5 BR563.N4 E53 1993.
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Folklore by Anand Prahlad, ed.
Publication Date: 2006
Call Number: Atlanta Library North GR 111 .A47 G74 2006 (also available at several Perimeter libraries)
Oxford Handbook of African American Theology by Katie G. Cannon and Anthony B. Pinn, eds.
Call Number: Electronic book
Publication Date: 2014
Oxford Handbook of Religion and the Arts by Frank Burch Brown, ed.
Publication Date: 2014
Call Number: Atlanta Library North 4 NX180.R4 O94 2014

Handbook Series

Oxford University Press and Routledge Press both publish handbook series that give overviews of a wide range of topics, including Religious Studies topics. Examples include (but are not limited to):

Oxford Handbooks