Guides: FYSE 1029 Worldbuilding and Worldmaking: Home

Science fiction writers research real-world details to make fictional worlds more believable and to resonate with their audience. Popular, trade, and background sources are an excellent place to start this type of research. They can also help us use science to better understand our day-to-day lives.

Popular Sources for Research

The Conversation
Written by authors expertise in policy, science, health, economics, education, history, ethics and most every subject studied in colleges and universities. Some articles offer practical advice grounded in research, while others simply provide authoritative answers to questions
Futurity
News about scientific, health, cultural , & environmental research from 47 universities around the world.
Science News
Published by the "Society for Science", covers advances in science, medicine and technology for the general public.
Smithsonian
Smithsonian is the official journal published by the Smithsonian Institution, containing popular science and social science topics and written for a general audience.

Databases for Background Research

Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is widely regarded as the accepted authority on the English language. It is an unsurpassed guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world.
Oxford Reference Online: Premium This link opens in a new window
General reference resources, including encyclopedias, bilingual dictionaries, chronologies, and maps and illustrations.

EOL Encyclopedia of Life
Information on animals, plants, fungi, protists and bacteria gathered from books, journals, databases, websites, specimen collections.

Britannica Academic This link opens in a new window
Academic edition. Search by subject or keyword. In addition to topical essays, timelines, images, and videos, it provides links to full text journal articles and links to related websites.
Opposing Viewpoints (Gale In Context) This link opens in a new window
Opposing Viewpoints covers current controversies and hot topics. It features viewpoint articles, topic overviews, full-text magazine, academic journal, and newspaper articles, primary source documents, statistics, images and podcasts, and links to Websites.
Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
Contains Grove Art Online, today's foremost scholarly art encyclopedia covering all aspects of Western and non-Western visual art. It includes the full text of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner (1996, 34 volumes) - the landmark reference work containing more than 21,000 biographies and 500,000 bibliographical citations contributed by 6,700 scholars from 120 countries. Grove Art Online articles and bibliographies are regularly updated. It also includes images and provides access to The Oxford Companion to Western Art, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms.

Ask a Middlebury Librarian

Chat live with a librarian

Meet

Text us at 802.546.0054