Aphorisms on Reference Works

Don't Cite Wikipedia for Context: Use Wikipedia to familiarize yourself with a topic, fine, but don’t cite it. It’s a resource, not a source.

Use Reference Works for Context: Reference works – encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, companions, study guides, and so forth – are a nice alternative when you need contextual information for a paper but are faced with, on the one hand, the unreliability of Wikipedia and, on the other, the overwhelming sea of scholarship in academic books and articles. Reference works provide readers with knowledge that is both authoritative (because it was written by a specialist and peer-reviewed) and accessible (because it was written as an introduction to a topic). 

Use Discipline-Specific Reference Works: I'm not speaking here about general reference works - something like Encyclopedia Britannica - although they can be helpful. Every academic field has a number of reference works that are specific to that field, things like The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare or the Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. These discipline-specific reference works are probably the best place to find reliable contextualizing information on a topic. 

Use Librarians for Help Finding the Best Reference Works: Some fields have an immense number of reference works, not all of them great, and it can be tough to tell where to look for good and relevant information. Sometimes, you can save yourself a lot of time and energy by simply going straight to a librarian and saying that you're looking for a reference work on whatever topic you're interested in. The librarian will likely know exactly where to point you. 

Go to Books and Articles for More Interpretive Ideas: The information in academic reference works is generally accepted widely across a field, either because it’s not really open to interpretation (facts and dates), or because an interpretation has reached a broad consensus. The more contestable ideas that need to be argued and defended will appear in academic monographs and articles.

Don't Quote Reference Works: When writing a paper, there’s no need to quote contextualizing sources. You can better provide that information - more concisely and in a way that is tailored to your own argument - through summary and paraphrase.

Use Reference Works to Set Up Surface Readings: Because the “stories” told in reference works are the generally accepted narratives, they are often open to “close readings” that complicate or problematize the “surface reading” or “conventional reading” available in those reference works.