I. Assignment: Research of reference sources and materials. A. Purpose. 1. To familiarize students with available reference materials. 2. To develop methods of tracing topic-specific information. B. Goals. 1. Locate library reference materials. 2. Determine how specific materials are designed to be use. 3. Organized results into written, communicable form. II. Method. A. Locate the following reference books in a library. 1. Guide To Reference Books (Sheehy) 2. A Manual For Writers Of Term Papers, Theses, And Dissertations. (Turabian) 3. Reader''s Guide To Periodical Literature. 4. Four different Atlases. 5. Four subject-specific Dictionaries. 6. Four subject-specific Indexes. 7. Four subject-specific Abstracts. 8. Four subject-specific Encyclopedias. B. Turn in a paper describing the PURPOSE and SCOPE of each book listed above. III. General Information. A. Reference books are used to locate information. 1. Some are general in nature, containing information on a wide variety of topics. 2. Some contain information pertaining to one topic only. 3. Some contain no subject information, but list other sources of such information, i.e., they are bibliographies. 4. Some contain definitions of words, information about specific languages, jargons, and argots.