Library Guides: English 1: Literary Criticism

Developed by Gina Haycock, Librarian
For Kim Sheffield, Instructor
The URL is: http://www.cos.edu/library/libraryguideslitcriticismSheffield3-07.htm

REFERENCE BOOKS:
Located on the first floor of the LRC behind the Reference Desk.  These books cannot be checked out.. Reference books include dictionaries, almanacs and encyclopedias. Specialized or subject encyclopedias (concentrating on a particular subject instead of covering all knowledge) are excellent starting points for research. They are focused on a particular topic, cover the major concepts of the topic, are written by experts in the field, and often have bibliographies or other references. Examples of Reference books in the COS library are as follows:

Contemporary Literary Criticism    #R809.04 C761
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism    #R809.04 T971
The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time    #R809.3 B973
Oxford Companion to African American Literature    #R810.8 Ox98
Modern American Women Writers    #R810.9 M689
African American Writers    #R810.9 A512
American Women Writers     #R810.99287 A512
Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia    #R920.72 B627
Contemporary Authors    #R928.1 C761c

Online Reference Books:
Gale Virtual Reference Library - Gale provides access to 200 reference books. All the books are full-text and cover a wide variety of topics including art, science, literature and much more. All 200 titles can be searched simultaneously or individual titles may be selected. (Cost $20,000)

Circulating  books:

Online Books:

PERIODICALS INDEXES AND DATABASES: *

For current social issue topics, periodicals (magazines, journals and newspapers) usually are the best source of timely and authoritative information. To find out which periodicals have articles on a given topic, it is necessary to use an index. Indexes are available in paper and electronic formats. The LRC subscribes to approximately 17 indexes:  Index Title Holdings and 270 periodicals:  Magazine Title Holdings  and Newspaper Title Holdings . These are physically available in the Periodicals Area on the first floor of the LRC.  For periodicals that the COS LRC does not have available, there is also the possibility of borrowing books and obtaining copies of articles through an process called Inter-Library Loans  with the Madden Library at Fresno State University.

Literary magazines/Journals in COS Library:

• American Literature

• Explicator

• Journal of Popular Culture

• Literature Cavalcade (1966-My 2005; end publication)

• Lyric

• Modern Fiction Studies

• New York Times Book Review

• PMLA

• Papers on Language and Literature

• Short Story International (1978-Fe 1997)

• Studies in Short Fiction (Winter 1971-1999)

However, through the Academic Electronic Databases link on the COS Library’s Web Site, a student can locate indexing and many full-text periodical articles regardless of whether the LRC subscribes to the source. Because these indexes are part of what is known as the Invisible Web, that is, proprietary databases, they are available by subscription only; the LRC pays fees so that COS students can use them. If a student is off campus, passwords are necessary to access these databases. Passwords are available for COS students at the COS LRC Information Desk or by calling (559) 737-6179. Below is a partial list of the Periodical Databases the LRC  makes available by subscription for COS students:

• InfoTrac  is a periodical index database that works well when using a subject search. When entering a subject search, you can use broad terms, because the index will automatically help to narrow the search. This index is not completely full-text.

• Academic Search Elite is a periodical index database that works well when using a key-word search. When entering a key-word search, you need to use precise words and the more words you add, the narrower the search becomes. This index is not completely full-text.

• Lexis/Nexis is a database that provides access to full-text articles from newspapers across the nation and some international newspapers. It is also an excellent source for finding specific court cases.

• Student Research Center - This site provides access to the Columbia Encyclopedia as well as government reports, magazines, news transcripts, Primary Source Documents and more.

*For literary criticism (Literary criticism generally analyzes works of literature, past or current, as works of art, according to any of a variety of theories) and interpretation, probably the best database choices would be InfoTrac, Academic Search Elite, and the Student Research Center and possibly the magazines and journals choice in Lexis/Nexis.

Another possible search tool is Google Scholar at the URL: http://scholar.google.com/ This search tool indexes books, peer-reviewed papers, theses, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, and universities; however, full-text of the source is often unavailable online.

WEB SITES:
 Literary criticism generally analyzes works of literature, past or current, as works of art, according to any of a variety of theories.

• Sites about Their Eyes Were Watching God - This pathfinder is designed to help students in researching and writing a paper that requires sources of literary criticism.

• Voices from the Gap Women writers of color
• Zora Neale Hurston  Biographical information including a bibliography of criticism from the Concise Dictionary of American Literary Biography