Options outside Wikipedia

Digital time, you don't need to have a thick dictionary to look up information. Just go online, go to Google, type the keyword, you will have the answer right away. The results often lead to Wikipedia pages - an open dictionary is a reference to information of many people today.

Although the volume of information of this dictionary is very large, the accuracy of information always makes the experts doubtful. Thankfully, there are many websites for you to consult.

Wikipedia is not considered an official source of reference, its weakness is that information is often inaccurate because everyone can change it. You need to check on different sources. A newer website, Citizendium ( en.citizendium.org ) made by one of the Wikipedia founders, may be an option. Operators say they have editorial experts to make sure that all information is accurate, and editors must use their real names, not pseudonyms. The number of lessons is also less. Just the first year, this page has only 4,500 articles, compared with 2.1 million articles (in English only) of Wikipedia.

Another alternative for Wikipedia, try http://www.refdesk.com/ . This portal leads to free dictionaries and encyclopedias such as Microsoft's Encarta with 42,000 articles. http://www.ibiblio.org/ is also worth a reference if you explore broader topics, such as the development of Chinese culture.

To get specific figures for any country in the world, try the CIA World Factbook ( www.tinyurl.com/2b2kg9 ). This page contains up-to-date information from population to weather, life expectancy, resources or territorial disputes.

Articles on music, cinema and video-game criticism at http://www.allmusic.com/ are also a diverse source. So that you can find information about rankings, visit http://www.everyhit.com/ , which has information about British music charts since 1952.

For language issues, the http://www.wordreference.com/ page will give you clear definitions of words in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and English.

When you search for specific topics, http://www.ask.com/ sometimes gives better results than Google, because it categorizes to narrow down your choices for easy information. For example, if you look for "Benjamin Disraeli" (the former British prime minister), the page will provide documents about his impressive sayings, political career, writings or his biggest rival. William Gladstone. Scholar.google.co.uk is a very good site for academic and academic researchers.

In case you can't find the answer, page answers.yahoo.com can help you contact Yahoo! Other and they give you the answer, or just your reference source.

Hanh Nguyen