Bernadette Flynn Low
English 201 - British Literature

There is a wealth of information on British Literature in books, magazine, journal articles and on the web. Below are some helpful resources to find that information.

Finding information on literature in:

Finding information in magazines/journals/newspapers: Top

• Use the Periodical Databases which include articles from magazine, journals and newspapers to find focused articles on your topic.
• To access these databases from home or office please go to Magazine & Journal page and follow the instructions for off-campus access.
• Use the Literature Databases page to find the best databases for finding articles on literature. Below are a few of these databases:
  
  
  • Literature Resource Center by Gale is a good literary database with overview of works, criticisms and information on individual authors.
  • Proquest Direct has some literary articles. Under collections click on Humanities module and General Research module.
  • Academic Elite in EBSCOhost and Maryland Digital Library has some literary articles and information.
   
• Finding information in books/media: Top
  • Use the CCBC Dundalk Library Catalog to find books
    • For information about an author and criticisms of an author's work. (Hint: Use the author's last name in the subject search or do a keyword search by typing in the author's last name and criticism.)
    • For an individual work use the title or author search.
      
  • Use the Literature Reference books in the library. They are in the REF P section. Some specific titles that might help with your research are:
    • Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800 (Ref PN 86 .L56)
    • Depending on your author the reference books below might also help:
      • British Writers (REF PR 85 .B6888))
      • World Literature Criticism (REF PN 523 .W67 1992)

       

• Finding information using the web:  Top
  • Evaluation criteria for making sure you have selected reliable, authoritative web sites.
  • Remember to cite your sources.
  • Use a Search Engine to find information on the exact title of the book and the author's name you want. See library list of search engines.
    • You will get some irrelevant hits, so do a phrase search ( put words in quotes"".)
    • You might also try to narrow your search using your author's name with the title (use "and" or + if needed between the author and title.)
      
• You might also try to find more general sites on literature by using a Subject Directory. See library list of Subject Directories or Evaluative Web Directories
  • Suggested Subject Directories:
    • Librarian's Index to the Internet http://www.lii.org
      
    • Infomine http://infomine.ucr.edu
  • Suggested Web sites: Top
• Online Literary Criticism Collection -http://www.ipl.org/ref/litcrit/ Mostly biographical information with list of annotated bibliography for criticisms. Links the user to over 1,000 critical and biographical Web sites on literary criticism dealing with American and British literature from pre-1500 to the twentieth century. Each literary link displayed is annotated and can be accessed by author, work or literary period. The Web links were carefully selected "for their overall usefulness" for high school and college students. In addition, both a literary criticism guide and a pathfinder have been provided for further exploration of Web and print resources.

Top