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Finding Literary Criticisms and Background Materials on Short Story Writers: English 4 (Theresa Lebeiko)

Library Home page: http://www.chabotcollege.edu/library/

Search Strategy Handout: http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/handouts/Eng1A/strategy.html

Literary Criticism Databases:

These two databases lead you to reference materials that contain selected literary criticisms from a variety of resources. Often the most famous criticisms on particular works and authors will be found in these materials. Literature Resource Center is a large, full-text database of many literary criticisms coming from a variety of resources including reference books, magazines, and journals.

Gale Literary Index:

Use this database to find criticisms on your author in many different print resources published by Gale such as Contemporary Literary Criticism, Dictionary of Literary Biography, and Short Story Criticism (materials Chabot carries, though does not carry every volume of Dictionary of Literary Biography in print).

Link of print resources available at the Library (use Gale Literary Index for list of sources, then go to the shelves to find the respective title and volume to find criticisms on your author) http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/handouts/
litcrit.html#GaleResources

Literature Resource Center:

DO NOT E-MAIL ARTICLES.  THERE IS A TECHNOLOGICAL PROBLEM AND YOU WILL NOT GET THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.

Find many selected literary criticisms, articles, essays, and biographies on line and in full text. Literature Resource Center has the complete full text of the print sources Contemporary Authors and Dictionary of Literary Biography and most of Contemporary Literary Criticism. Also has a sample of many full text criticisms from many other Literary Reference Resources such as Short Story Criticism, as well as those published in magazines and journals. Some criticisms are famous and were originally published from 1900 to the present.

How to use Literature Resource Center

1. At Author Search, enter the name of the author and surround it in quotation marks as the example below shows:

2. From your results, select the folder tab for a particular type of resources. In Biographies, you will not only find information about the author, but some of the biographies also include extensive overviews on the author's major works. Literary Criticism, Articles, and Work Overviews will provide interpretations, criticisms and general overviews of the author's works as well. Bibliographies will lead you to both writings by the author as well as writings about the author. Finally, Additional Resources will lead you to selected web sites on your chosen author. The category you are looking it is the one with the folder tab in white.

  
  1. When selecting a category, you will sometimes have choices of subcategories. For example, in "Literary Criticism, Articles, & Work Overviews," you have listed below further selections in green boxes. Select the green box for your desired selection (usually will be "Literary Criticism" or "Articles" rather than the "Work Overviews" example listed below):

  2. Once you make your selections, select the options listed below. The results will lead you to information in full text.

    3.  

     

     

  3. When viewing the secondary resource, itself in Literature Resource Center, you can E-Mail or Print by clicking on the options stated on the top left of the screen:

Multi-Subject Periodical Databases

In addition to the Gale Databases, you can find many other literary criticisms on line and in full text, especially coming from articles published from 1995 to the present.

EbscoHost Academic Search Elite

A multi-subject database, covering the social sciences, humanities, general science, multi-cultural studies, education, and much more!  Tutorial available at: http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/handouts/
ebscohosthandout.html

Project MUSE

Scholarly journal articles in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

GenderWatch

Full text database of peer-reviewed journals, magazines, newsletters, and books  that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of subject areas.

Ethnic NewsWatch

Contains newspapers, magazines, and journals from the ethnic, minority and native press. 

 

Finding More Literary Criticisms in the Collection and Online

Literary Criticism Library Research Guide http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/handouts/litcrit.html

This guide scopes out the many different pathways to literary criticism through the print reference collection, library subscription databases, and many quality web sites.

Library Catalog—Finding Books and Videos: http://tinyurl.com/8mo5z/

How to Search the Library Catalog: http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/handouts/librarycatalog.html

Library of Congress Classification Handout: http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/handouts/lc.html

For this class, we have placed books that contain collections of essays on Reserve that cover Baldwin, Carver, Kingsolver, Oates, and Olsen, so that way everybody will have a chance to look at them and make photocopies of relevant essays. We currently do not have any books on Sherman Alexie, but you will find criticisms in Literature Resource Center, print reference resources, and journal articles. Keep in mind that in most databases, the subject heading for "Native Americans" is "Indians of North America."

Literary Criticism Collections on Reserves and Short Stories Reference

Title

Location

Short Story Criticism (V.1- 42)

Reference: PSN 3373 S56

Reference Guide to Short Fiction

Reference: PN 3373 R36 1994

A Reader’s Companion to the Short Story in English

Reference: PS 374.S5 R43 2001

The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story

Reference: PS 374.S5 C57 2000

James Baldwin: A Collection of Critical Essays

Reserves: PS 3552 A45 Z76

James Baldwin: A Critical Evaluation

Reserves: PS 3552 A45 Z84

James Baldwin: Modern Critical Views

Reserves: PS 3552 A45 Z72 1986

Minimalism and the Short Story—Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel, and Mary Robison

Reserves: PS 374.S5 H35 1999

The Stories of Raymond Carver: A Critical Study

Reserves: PS 3553.A7894 Z78 1995

Barbara Kingsolver: A Critical Companion

Reserves: PS 3561.I496 Z64 1999

Critical Essays on Joyce Carol Oates

Reserves: PS 3565.A8 Z63

Three Radical Women Writers: Class and Gender in Meridel Le Sueur, Tillie Olsen, and Josephine Herbst

Reserves: PS 228.R34 R63 1996

Reference Resources for Further Research (Especially for Cultural/Historical Information)

Title

Location

A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory

Reference: PN 41 C83 1998

Dictionary of American History

Reference: E 174.D52 2003

American Decades

Reference: E 169.1 A4199 1995

St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture

Reference: E 169.1.S764 2000

The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz

Reference: ML 102.J3 N48 2002

The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music

Reference: ML 102 P66 G84 1995

Reference Library of Black America

Reference: E 185 R44 1997

Reference Library of European America

Reference: E 184 E95 R45 1998

Reference Library of Native North America

Reference: E 77 N37 1994

 

World Wide Web: Academic Searching

Librarians’ Index to the Internet
      http://lii.org

INFOMINE: Social Sciences and Humanities
      http://infomine.ucr.edu/

Online Subject Index http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/abby/dbsbysubject.html

Scout Report Archives
      http://scout.wisc.edu/Archives/

Academic Info
      http://www.academicinfo.us/

Virtual Learning Resources Center
      http://www.virtuallrc.com/

 

World Wide Web: General Searching http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/handouts/Eng1A/Transue.html#search

SearchGov
      http://www.searchgov.com/

SearchEDU
   http://www.searchedu.com  

Google (limiting to .org)
      http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:.org

About
      http://www.about.com/

Map of Library: http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/abby/librarymap.html

Citing Resources

MLA Handout http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/onlineref/cited.html

 

Citing Resources from Library Subscription Databases, Using MLA http://www.chabotcollege.edu/Library/onlineref/cited.html#database

Additional Tips to Citing Resources from Literature Resource Center

The easiest way to figure out how to cite your online document is to view its citation as a link in the "Results List" mode, then modify it using the MLA format. Follow the directions as indicated under "Citing Resources from Library Subscription Databases" from the MLA Handout (link listed above). For the example below, since the place of publication for the original is unknown, it is omitted. Notice that additional information on the book and the credentials of the editors are NOT included in the citation.

 

From the Results List in Literature Resource Center:

How you would cite the source:

Elias, Eduardo F. "Sandra Cisneros." Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 122: Chicano Writers, Second Series. Ed. Francisco A. Lomeli and Carl R. Shirley. Gale Group, 1992: 77-81. Literature Resource Center. Chabot College Lib., Hayward, CA. 15 Nov. 2003 <http://infotrac.galegroup.com/menu>.