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Some books and web sites contain reference information that is organised alphabetically.

Here are three types of information text that are commonly organised this way. Click on each one to find out more.

An encyclopaedia is a book of general knowledge. It gives you brief facts about a lot of different things. You can also get encyclopaedias that deal with a particular area of knowledge e.g. a wildlife encyclopaedia.
A dictionary is an alphabetical list of words. You can look up a word to find out what it means and to get other information about the word's use.
A glossary is like a small, specialised dictionary. It tells you the meaning of specialist words for a particular topic.