Encyclopaedias
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If you need a one-line definition of an unusual term in a
story, it is best to check an authoritative online
encyclopaedia. Microsoft's
Encarta
Encyclopedia has compact articles. Another compact
encyclopaedia that provides a wealth of online
information is the Information Please
On-Line Dictionary, Internet Encyclopedia & Almanac
Reference. Greater detail is available in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica. Consult Wikipedia
with great caution. It may be helpful in some cases, but its articles are not peer reviewed
and there have been cases in which its material has been maliciously falsified. |
Handbooks
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dpa generally adopts the titles of the public officials
and the spellings of their names as printed in the latest
edition of The Europa World Yearbook but this may
not always be up to date. Many governments have their own
websites, which can be consulted. Websites for a
selection of world organizations
are listed in this Style Guide. dpa's own archives - the
"Dokumentation" in Hamburg provides a database (in
German) of 1,500-plus people in the news, but this is
only accessible to those registered to use the dpa
intranet. Another useful online resource for titles and
spellings is the CIA World Factbook which contains
cabinet
lists for every country in the world and is regularly
updated. The same publication also contains
country factsheets that are extremely useful if you
are looking for English translations of the names of
parties and institutions in foreign countries.
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Crimes
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Crime often makes news, and it can be
difficult translating accurately the names of criminal
offences in jurisdictions that do not use English-type
legal systems. The
World Factbook of Criminal Justice Systems was
compiled some years ago with funding from the U.S.
Justice Department and provides English names for
criminal offences, courts and procedures in 42 countries.
It is not particularly easy to use: each country is dealt
with in one very long text file, but the translations by
law professors can be relied on.
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Books & Films
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The English names of books and films should always be checked for
accuracy. (See the Punctuation
page for the rule on using quotation marks.) Books in
print or recently in print are listed by the hundreds of
thousand on the sites of Internet bookstores such as Amazon.Com. Both the
English and foreign names of major films can be checked
on the Internet Movie
Database which sometimes has typos in the names but
is generally reliable.
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