The SKEPTIC Annotated Bibliography
The SKEPTIC Annotated Bibliography lists resources of interest to those skeptical about paranormal or fringe-science claims. We concentrate on books, but also throw in some periodicals and web pages. All entries include a brief review.

You can use the bibliography when you wonder "I want to learn more about creationism, what books can I consult?" Or, "my brother-in-law is getting into astrology, what might I recommend to acquaint him with a skeptical view?" Or when you think, "I'm writing an article on psychic powers, and there's this book I remember I should check out from the library" and you go to the SKEPTIC Bibliography to refresh your memory and also get ideas about other resources. And so on.

Most of our entries take a skeptical point of view, but many make a respectable case that skeptics should know about, or are overly credulous but nonetheless valuable in understanding a particular belief. No review content is intended to substitute for consulting the material itself.

Searching

You can search by text or by keyword. The text search is straightforward: enter words separated by spaces, and the search will retrieve a list of entries in which all of these words appear, with no regard to case. For example, to get a list of books which are authored by James Randi, or just mention him in their review somewhere, type in "Randi" and click on `Search.'

The `Exact' checkbox is for a search where you might want an exact match. For example, magazines and journals have a "(periodical)" in place of an author's name. To get a list of the periodicals in the bibliography, type in "(periodical)" and check `Exact' so the search does not ignore the parantheses.

For a more precise look at a definite subject, use the keyword search. Each entry includes a number of keywords listing the different paranormal-related topics it touches on. The form of a keyword is subject or subject:modifier. The modifier allows for more detailed searches. For example, creationism:defense means material in defense of creationism.

Resources in related subjects are grouped together into categories. However, this is only a loose organization with much overlap, and a detailed search should use the keywords.

Comments

You can submit a comment by clicking on `Send a Comment' on the home page. Alternatively, you can click on `Comment' on the display screen for any book, and your comment will automatically include the title of the book you're commenting on.

We welcome comments on any aspect of this bibliography. Stylistic improvements, revisions, expansions, objections to the reviews, gripes -- anything, though the bibliography owner will make all final judgments. The reviews especially are not etched in stone; the nice thing about a bibliography on the Web is that it can continually change in response to criticism.

New Entries

The bibliography relies on its readers for new entries! Please consider writing up a brief review of a book or two.

To submit a review, click on `Submit an Entry' in the bibliography home page. In the form that appears, fill in title and author. Then write a brief description of the book's contents, whether you recommend it, and whatever else you feel like adding. This does not have to be well-written or anything -- whatever comes off the top of your head is fine. It's the bibliography owner's job to beat the review into shape later.

It would also be nice, though optional, if you could fill in the year, publisher, and number of pages of the book, and if you could indicate which category it should go in and which keywords you think go with it. But if you don't want to bother with these details, that's fine -- let the bibliography owner figure out what to do about these.

After editing, new entries get posted to the SKEPTIC Discussion Group, to inform members and allow them to comment.

We can use reviews for just about any book skeptical about paranormal claims. Proponents' books are OK, but they have to be good or representative in some way. Also, we concentrate on paranormal topics, which means we do not cover books skeptical about politics or mainstream religion.

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Bibliography owner: Taner Edis bibliographer@csicop.org
Web services: Patrick Fitzgerald webmaster@csicop.org