You are here: McCain Home > Need Help? > Course Guides >English 480

McCain Library

English 480: Senior Research Seminar

The Guide to Library Research provides an introduction/review to the research process, including an overview of "Scholarly" and "Popular" Publications

Reference Books and Databases

There are several sets of literary criticism in the Reference Section of the library and specialized encyclopedia sets on literature topics. Most of these are in the PN - PS call number range.

Depending on your topic, you may want to venture into other areas of the Reference section, such as History. The Library of Congress Classification Outline provides an outline of the LC Call Number system.

Literature Reference Databases

Literary Reference Center

Literature Online Reference Edition

Literature Resource Center

New General Reference Database

Credo Reference

Credo Reference features full-text content from over 240 reference books from over 50 publishers, covering such subjects as medicine, art, technology, and history. The collection includes encyclopedias, dictionaries and thesauri, as well as subject-specific titles.

Specialized Databases - Literature

MLA International Bibliography

MLA will be your primary resource for finding scholarly literary criticism. MLA is an index to books and articles on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics.

From MLA Help:

MLA International Bibliographyis an index of journal articles, books and dissertations. Produced by the Modern Language Association, the electronic version of the bibliography dates back to 1963 and contains over 1.6 million citations from more than 4,400 journals and series and 1,000 book publishers. Coverage is international and subjects include literature, language and linguistics, folklore, literary theory & criticism, dramatic arts, as well as the historical aspects of printing and publishing.

JSTOR

The complete backfiles (full-text) of core academic journals in many disciplines. Coverage begins in the 1800s for some journals, and goes up through 2 to 5 years ago. For a some journals, links to recent content in Project Muse are included.

Project Muse

Full-text of more than 200 scholarly journals in the humanities and social sciences from several university presses. Coverage is of recent issues only.

Alexander Street Press Databases

Alexander Street Press is a premier publisher of scholarly databases in the humanities. These resources include reference and primary-source collections.

Black Thought and Culture is a landmark collection of non-fiction writings by major African American figures. Authors include Frederic Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Jr., and many more. Black Thought and Culture also contains exclusive Black Panther oral histories and the full, extant catalogue of The Black Panther newspaper.

Black Women Writers is composed of literature and essays never before available in electronic format. This growing collection documents black women's struggles with both racism and sexism, from the late eighteenth century to the Harlem Renaissance to today.

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries is the largest collection of British and Irish women's diaries and correspondence ever assembled. Spanning more than 300 years, it brings the personal experiences of nearly 500 women to researchers, students, and general readers.

Specialized Databases for History

Search the following databases for articles (or citations to articles) on your topic. Make use of the linked online help as needed.

America History & Life
"The premier bibliographic citation tool for the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. It covers 2,000 English language historical journals including selected local history journals. The database also includes citations to dissertations and book reviews in American and Canadian history." Coverage is 1964 - present. Links to full-text articles in JSTOR and Project Muse.

Historical Abstracts
"Covers the history of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada that are covered in its companion database, America: History and Life). It provides bibliographic citations and article abstracts on all aspects of history from over 2,000 scholarly journals, dissertations and selected books." Coverage is 1960 - present.

Specialized Database - Biography

Biography Reference Bank

Biography Resource Center

For Film Research

Many of these same sources are useful for researching film topics. Our Guide to Film Research includes electronic and print resources of interest.

New database for film research

Film & Television Literature Index with Full Text

Comprehensive bibliographic and full text database covering the entire spectrum of television and film. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.

Does McCain Library have this journal? Is it full-text?

If the database you are searching does not include your journal or article, search the Journal/Article Locator.

This will show you if we have your journal through any database. The journal/article locator will also tell you if we have a publication in our print or microfilm collections. If we don't have access to the publication, you can request the article through Interlibrary Loan, or, check to see if another local library that you can visit owns it.

Other local libraries may have books in their collections on your topic. Try searching their catalogs for relevant materials.

Creating a Bibliography: Relatively New Software at ASC

RefWorks: Useful web-based tool that allows researchers to import references from online databases. You can use these references in writing your papers and automatically format the paper and the bibliography in seconds. The tutorial and Quick Start Guide are both very well-done; they are available under "About Us" link in RefWorks.

Please Note: RefWorks is an excellent tool & can create bibliographies in many formats. They do not claim 100% accuracy though; it is still your responsibilty to ensure entries are in the proper citation format. Please proofread!

For additional assistance, please contact the McCain Library Scottie Research & Rescue (Reference) Desk in person, by phone (404-471-6096), email us, or IM us at asclibrarian (AOL & Yahoo)