Best Bets for Reference
Looking for phone numbers,
sources to interview, the correct style and spelling, and
other quick facts? Chances are you'll find the answers using
the following reference resources. Use this guide to find:
Sources and contact information
Facts and statistics
Style, pronunciation and citation guides
Archived news and Web sites
Sources and contact information
Ames Public Library—Find community organizations and The Tribune index.
Google Groups—Find sources to interview by searching for contributors and posts to Usenet discussion forums.
Infospace—Offers reverse lookups of phone numbers, addresses and email addresses.
Searchbug—Verify email addresses and social security numbers. Determine if a number is a cell or landline phone.
Sources and Experts—A Web site compiling the best links for finding expert sources.
Sources: ISU's Experts List—Access hundreds of ISU faculty and staff.
Student Organizations at ISU—Find contact people representing hundreds of student groups.
Whitepages.com—Search for business and residential listings by name, phone number and address.
Facts and statistics
Bartleby.com—Gateway to online reference sources, including books of quotations, encyclopedias and the CIA's World Factbook.
Census Bureau—Find local, state and national demographics.
Infoplease—An online almanac with an atlas, dictionary and encyclopedia.
ISU Fact Book—Locate all kinds of university statistics.
NewsEngin's Free Tools—Offers handy calculators to determine percent changes and cost of living.
OnlineConversion.com—Instantly convert about anything, including pounds to kilograms, Fahrenheit to Celsius, etc...
RobertNiles.com—Provides math help for journalists wanting to figure percentages and more.
SNOPES: Urban Legends Reference Pages—A collection of urban legends and hoaxes on the Internet.
Your Dictionary—Search hundreds of dictionaries, including foreign language dictionaries.
Style, pronunciation and citation guides
AP Stylebook—Access the online version of the AP Stylebook via computers in Hamilton Hall. Online access allows keyword searching as well as direct links to new stylebook entries, popular topics and recent changes.
Assembling a List of Works Cited—A guide from the Duke University Libraries.
Basic Legal Citation—From the Cornell Law School, learn to cite legal cases, laws and more. Examples are provided.
The Chicago Manual of Style 15th ed —Find answers to your style questions here. Perform searches for "bibliograhy" or "citations" to find examples of proper documentation.
Landmarks Citation Machine—Use this site to create APA and MLA citations for bibliographies. Provides the proper formats for print and electronic resources. You fill in the information, and the citation machine does the formatting.
Voice of America Pronunciation Guide—Find the proper pronunciations to foreign terms, names and locations.
Archived news and Web sites
News Archives—Find archived news stories published in newspapers across the world. This site is sponsored by the News Division of the Special Libraries Association.
Wayback Machine—Uncover old and discarded Web pages using this Internet archive. Browse through millions of pages back to 1996.
Your AP—Access two week's worth of stories, photos and graphics from the Associated Press wire. Please contact the Greenlee librarian for a password.
Last updated: Dec. 1, 2005
Comments: dfrykber@iastate.edu
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