Researching Literature

Remember that when you’re researching an author, search for his or her name as the subject or keyword. When you’re researching a particular work, search for the work as the subject or keyword.

Remember to check the nationality of your author. For example, Margaret Atwood is Canadian and most likely will not be covered by American Literature sources.

When using internet/web sites, make sure they are authoritative and not written by some other student at some other school, or by essay mills. These sources are not experts and can be quite poor in quality of both writing and content. Stick to authoritative sources.

Books

PN call numbers                       Literature in general

PQ                                           French, Italian, Spanish literature

PR                                           English (British) literature

PS                                            American Literature

Some of Baldwin Library’s Reference Works on Literature

*check Reference Collection for more

Contemporary Literary Criticism   REF PN 94.C65

Twentieth Century Literary Criticism   REF PN 94.T85

Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism   REF PN 761.N5

Poetry Criticism            REF PN 1010.P499

Short Story Criticism    REF PN 3373.S386

Drama Criticism            REF PR 623.C75

Literature and Its Times  REF PN 50.L574

Book Review Index  REF Z1035.A1  B6

Some Useful Databases (through GALILEO)

Arts and Humanities tab, then click “Literature” in GALILEO

Academic Search Premier

MLA International Bibliography, full-text

Literature Online Reference Edition

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (not full-text)

Some Web Resources for Researching Lit

INFOMINE: Scholarly Internet Resource Collections. http://infomine.ucr.edu

Internet Public Library Literary Criticism Collection. http://www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/

Literary Resources on the ‘Net. http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/