Using Catalogs: Use the WSU
online
catalog to find location and availability of books and other media
in Stewart Library. Most of the books on literature and literary criticism
are located
on level two of the library in the General
Collection under the call numbers PS and PR.
Use WorldCat
to find books in other libraries. Use
your WSU username and password for off-campus access. Books
and articles not available at Stewart Library may be obtained through
Interlibrary Loan
Subject Searching:
Use the term "Criticism" and the name of an author
or title in the catalog to find books analyzing specific author's
works. For example: enter criticism Dickens as a general
keyword search in the catalog. It is almost always useful to consider
narrowing literature searches by using terms that will describe:
- author
- language and or location
- genre (fiction, poetry, drama, etc.)
- time period
- literary movement or theme
- critical theory: New Criticism, Psychoanalysis, Queer
Theory, New Historicism, marxist criticism, feminist criticism,
cultural studies, deconstruction, ecocriticism, phenomenology,
postcolonial, postmodernism, structuralism, etc. These each may
also be described as "....critical theory" or "
...isms"
Other useful Library of
Congress Subject Headings may include: Literature - History and
Criticism, Rhetoric, Deconstruction, Feminist Criticism, Formalism,
and Literary Analysis.
Electronic Books:
From Bookstores: Order
books online from Amazon Books,
Barnes and Noble.
Interlibrary Loan :
If we do not own a particular book or article you need, we will
borrow it for you from another library through Interlibrary
Loan.
Reference resources include encyclopedias, dictionaries and
other materials you use to "refer" to. Use these resources
for background information on a topic.
ONLINE REFERENCE RESOURCES
- Literature Criticism Online - Find literary criticism and information on authors from several Gale resources. Includes:Children's Literature Review, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Contemporary Literature Criticism, Literature Criticism 1400-1800, Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism, Shakespeare Criticism, Short Story Criticism, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Available from 2010 (Beginning dates vary).
- Literature
Resource Center - The Literature Resource Center database
includes Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography
and other materials. It provides access to biographies,
bibliographies and critical analysis of over 90,000 authors from
every age and literary discipline. Search by Author Name, Title,
Genre, Literary Movement or Literary Themes. A great place to
start any literature research project or paper.
- Biography
Reference Bank - More than 46,000 full-text profiles of authors,
artists, prizewinners, politicians, world leaders, musicians and
more. Covers the Ancient World to the present.
PRINT REFERENCE RESOURCES
Listed below are some
selected examples. Use the catalog or browse the shelves, under
the PN to PT call numbers, to see many more reference books (dictionaries,
encyclopedias, handbooks, guides, companions, concordances, thesauri,
etc.) on literature and literary criticism.
- American Writers (Supplement) - Stewart Library, Main
level, REF PS129.A55
- Benet's Readers Encyclopedia - Reference PN41.B4 1996
- Contemporary Literary Criticism - Stewart Library, Main
level, REF PN813.C6
- Encyclopedia of the Novel - Reference PN41.E487 1998
V.1-2
- Reference Guide to World Literature - Reference PN524.R44
1995 V.1-2
- To find short stories, use the The Short Story Index
on Reference Table 3B - 1st Floor (Ref Z5917.S5C6)
- covers short stories written in or translated into English that
have appeared in collections and selected periodicals from 1950
to 1999. Search by author, title or subject.
- Short Story Criticism (Ref PN 3321.S56) provides
selections of reviews on hundreds of short stories
FINDING
BOOK REVIEWS:
There are
several good sources for book reviews they include:
- Book Review Digest - Reviews of fiction and
nonfiction in magazines and journals. Search by author and
publication date to find review excerpts and references to reviews
in other publications. In print format back to 1905.
- Books in Print
with Reviews - Some full text reviews.
- Amazon.com - Search for
a book by author or title, scroll down to see both editorial reviews
and review excerpts from major publications and customer reviews
from interested readers.
- The
New York Times Book Reviews - Search the books archive for
full text book reviews and news since 1996. Also online
through LexisNexis
back to June 1980, and on microfilm as part of the Sunday issue
of New York Times
- The New York
Review of Books - Over 20 full text reviews and article from
each issue are available online. Also includes the complete table
of contents for each issue and an excellent searchable archive.
- Atlantic
Monthly - Search and view full text of back issues of The
Atlantic Monthly that have appeared on the Web. From November,
1995, to the present.
- Use the Theatre Research Guide to
find play reviews and the Film Research
Guide for movie reviews.
- All of the article databases below can also be used to
find book, short story, movie and play reviews and critical articles.
ARTICLE DATABASES
To find articles on your
topic you need to use article databases, also known as periodical
indexes. Each database usually covers a group of subject related
journals. Search by subject or keyword in these indexes. Use the
subject searching tips described above. For home
or off campus access use your student ID number.
- MLA
- MLA International Bibliography is usually the best index
for researching literature and literary criticism topics. MLA
provides article reference for articles in literature,
languages, linguistics, and folklore back to 1963. Updated ten
times per year.
- Arts
& Humanities Search - Citations from many of the world's
leading arts and humanities journals. 1980 - present, updates
weekly.
- Academic
Search Premier - Provides some full text articles in over
4600 magazines and journals
- Lexis/Nexis
Academic - Full-text coverage of many newspapers from
across the US and around the world.
- Education
Databases (EbscoHost) - includes ERIC
- Education
Full Text
- IIPA
-- International Index to Performing Arts - Citations, abstracts
and some full-text articles on all aspects of the performing arts
including plays and playwrights.
- JSTOR
- Full text articles from scholarly journals in the field of language
and literature
- Masterplots - 12,000 entries covering world literature,
ancient to modern day. Plot summaries, character profiles and
author biographies. In Stewart Library use Ref Station #33. Ask
for CD at Reference Desk.
BROWSING CURRENT PERIODICALS
Current magazines and
journals on literature and literary criticism can be browsed in
the Current Periodicals Area, in the "P" section on the
Main level. Bound volumes of older issues are found upstairs in
the periodicals stacks.
ELECTRONIC JOURNALS
The library subscribes
to many electronic journals in literature including:
Here are
some WWW sites to get you started. Most of these will take you to
other links, so explore!
META SITES
AWARDS
