Written by scholars and librarians, Oxford Bibliographies Online introduces academic topics and lists their seminal articles.
Sociology currently includes 60 topics such as masculinity, discrimination, social mobility, and poverty with more articles forthcoming.
Wikipedia can be a good source for finding background information quickly. However, anyone on the internet can edit it at any time, so it is not the most reliable source.
If you need trustworthy background information, consult an academic encyclopedia or dictionary. The library has many sociology and social sciences encyclopedias and dictionaries, many of which are available online.
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The Social Science Jargon Buster by 
The Concise Encyclopedia of SociologyContains over 800 entries from the whole breadth of the disciplines. Distilled from the highly regarded Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, with entries completely revised and updated to provide succinct and up-to-date coverage of the fundamental topics. Global in scope, both in terms of topics and contributors.
Encyclopedia of PowerA one-stop point of reference for the diverse and complex ways in which power has been used, this encyclopedia provides a reference for debates central to the issues of power in different contexts.
Encyclopedia of Social TheoryReference source for anyone interested in the roots of contemporary social theory. The encyclopedia examines the global landscape of all the key theories and the theorists behind them, presenting them in the context needed to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Encyclopedia of Social ProblemsWith more than 600 entries, these two volumes cover all of the major theories, approaches, and contemporary issues in social problems and also provide insight into how social conditions get defined as social problems, and the ways different people and organizations view and try to solve them.