20 Essential Writing References

By now most people know my stand on citing Wikipedia as a source or reference: as Borat said, "not so good". Sure it's fine for general knowledge. Consult it to get an idea of what a topic is about or for leads to authoritative resources. I was happy to see my stand echoed by Gideon Addington in his post at Mindful Ink:

Whenever I first begin a project I almost always go and overview it through Wikipedia. It’s a great introduction to a subject, also connecting you easily to other related ideas, people and places.

He continues on to list Beyond Wikipedia: 20 References You Can't Do Without. They are "mostly resources anyone can use (with a couple of notable exceptions)." Two of them you may need to access through a school or library account are JSTOR for journals and the Oxford English Dictionary. (Regular readers know of my lust for my own OED or subscription.)

In a followup column elsewhere, Books on the Web, these websites are listed as good places to find textbook references:

1. Classics in the History of Psychology
2. The Online Books Page
3. eBrary.com
4. Google Books
5. Project Gutenberg
   

That last reference reminded me of a recent question on a forum. Someone in an isolated part of the world wanted to research a particular topic but had limited access to the Internet. That's a tough one. Can't get to a library, bookstores, or online; presumably can't afford to buy reference material. What to do? My advice would be: something else. Forget "write what you know". Write what you can research. Even if you know about a topic, you still need to be able to cite sources.