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Physician Associates: Dictionaries & encyclopedias

A guide to finding information for Physician Associate students. Includes links to key resources and sources of help.

Why use dictionaries and encyclopedias?

Encyclopedias and dictionaries are an excellent alternative to Wikipedia. You can use them:

  • when starting a project that is new or unfamiliar
  • for summaries
  • for lists of further reading

Some useful titles are listed below. Find more on the catalogue by searching for a broad topic and the word "encyclopedias" e.g. "clinical encyclopedias".

You can also search across multiple dictionaries and encyclopedias using the boxes below.

Useful reference works: selected titles

Search Summon for definitions and explanations

Find definitions and summaries from a wide range of online dictionaries and encyclopedias by searching the Summon discovery service using the box below.

Search Credo Reference

Use Credo Reference to search across multiple dictionaries and reference works.

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Search Oxford Reference

Use Oxford Reference to search across multiple dictionaries and reference titles, including bilingual dictionaries of French, German, Spanish, Italian, and Latin. If you are off-campus, you may need to log-in to view your search results.

Search Oxford Reference Online