ENG 701 Course Guide

Research guide for English 701: Graduate Research Methods.

Critical & Biographical Articles
Books
Theory
Journals
Dictionaries
Citations & Bibliographies

Prof. Nancy Foasberg

Nancy Foasberg Bibliographer for English

Please start by reading the English Literature Resource Guide to get a better idea of what sorts of resources the library offers.

Critical & Biographical Articles

To find more databases relevant to English, go to the Library's Databases page and choose “English” from the drop-down menu.

Critical Articles

MLA International Bibliography

This is the most comprehensive index of scholarly material in literature. You should visit it early in your research process.

Supports searching fields such as “Name of Work” and “Person -- About” which allow you to search for only articles identified as being about a particular work or author.
Journal articles, book articles, books and dissertations are listed here. Note that you can exclude dissertations from your search.
Search here before you visit JSTOR or Project Muse; most of the articles you will find in those databases are also here and can be identified more quickly.

Literature Criticism Online

Here you will find excerpts and full text of selected criticism for your work of interest. This is the digitized version of Gale's Literature Criticism series.

Provides a good overview of critical reception of a work and includes excellent bibliographies, making this a very good starting point.
Since an author may be covered in more than one series, it is often a good idea to search across the entire collection.
The scanned format is somewhat difficult to read; I recommend selecting Print/View PDF on the left to see a more readable version.
Some articles are missing because of copyright restrictions. Check the catalog or the print version for access.

JSTOR

JSTOR provides searchable full-text access to journals in all fields, but it is particularly strong in literature and history.

Full-text searching of articles.
No indexing; you can only search the full text of articles, or limit your search to their titles or authors. This means you will need to use more search terms and are more likely to find irrelevant articles.
It is possible to limit a search to journals in appropriate disciplines.
Materials less than 3-5 years old are not available in JSTOR.

Project Muse

Provides both full-text searching and subject indexing, but this is a smaller database than those listed above.

Allows you to limit to only articles or only reviews.
Uses Library of Congress Subject Headings, but does not require perfect adherence to the subject heading's format.
Can choose to search full text, or only metadata.
Each journal has a “Frequently Downloaded Articles” link, where you can see which articles have been of interest to others.

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature

This print-only bibliography is a major source for literature publications.

Broader foreign-language coverage than MLA, and covers many works MLA does not.
It is located on the third floor of the library, on Table 4.

Arts & Humanities Citation Index

You can use this to do “reverse citation” searching; it allows you to see articles that have cited a work you already know about.

Click Cited Reference Search to access this capability.
You can use this on critical articles, but it also works on literary or artistic works.
Coverage is not as thorough as it is for the sciences or social sciences.

The Year's Work in English Studies

This series reviews the literature on fields in English every year. It is an excellent place to browse for topics that scholars have found relevant over the past few years.

It is on Level 3, at the call number PE 58 .E6.

If you find a good article not held at Queens, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan.

Biographical Sources

Dictionary of Literary Biography: Provides short career biographies of a large number of authors. I also recommend browsing the print edition, which is located on the back of the shelves comprising the New Books area on Level 3.
Literature Resource Center: Provides access to authors' biographies and articles and web resources concerning their work. LRC republishes the text of a variety of reputable biographical sources. Explore the tabs for more information.
Twayne's Author Series: Provides biographies and analysis of major authors and their works.
Biography Reference Bank: Compiles several biographical references, and includes links to reviews, articles and books.

Books

CUNY+ (Library Catalog)

If you access CUNY+ from the Queens College Library website, it will by default search only Queens College. However, you can expand your search to all of CUNY.

Please see this page for information on how to get books from other CUNY libraries.

Search for Author as Subject

The best way to find criticism on an author's work is to search on that author's name in the Subject begins with … field, last name first.
Browse for useful subheadings. These often include Criticism and Interpretation and the names of specific works.

Begin with a Keyword Search (All Fields)

Use relevant items to learn what the subject headings are. Example: “orientalism AND popular culture”.
First hit includes the heading: “Orientalism in Art.” Click on it and choose “Browse subject headings.”.
The list includes the heading “Orientalism in literature.” Click on it for a new search.
The names of well-known authors are usually subject headings themselves, so searching for an author, last name first, under “Subject Begins with” is often quite effective.

Browsing in CUNY+

Example: One book from your search looks interesting. Its call number is PR468 .O74 I58 2006.
Go back to the main CUNY+ search page and do a call number search. It will appear in a list with all the books classified near it. This is like browsing the shelves in several libraries at once.

Browsing the Shelves

Consider browsing the reference collection as well as the stacks, as we have many interesting resources there.

Books are arranged by time period, and within a time period, alphabetically by the author they concern. That is, books on Austen would come before books on Wordsworth, but after books on Swift.

Books on British literature are shelved under PR, and books on American literature are under PS. Please see this classification outline for more detailed information.

Other Library Catalogs

CUNY+: Here you can search all CUNY libraries at once. You can also navigate to this screen from the links above.
World Cat: World Cat is a catalog of libraries across the United States and some international libraries. This is an excellent place to start extending your search beyond CUNY.

More catalogs to extend your search are listed here.

If you need materials not held by CUNY, please use Interlibrary Loan. For books held in CUNY libraries other than Queens, use CLICS.

Theory

The library has information on theory that you may find helpful as you try to find a framework for your writing.

To get started, you may want to try a reference source such as Gale Virtual Reference Library or The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms.

I also recommend The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, a series that describes the sigificant publications in critical and cultural theory each year. It can be found on Level 3 at the call number PN 80 .Y43.

Books can help you to understand theory more deeply. The catalog (CUNY+) is, of course, a good way to find them. Here are some subject headings that bring up books you may find relevant:

American Literature -- History and Criticism -- Theory, etc.
English Literature -- History and Criticism -- Theory, etc.
Criticism
Feminist theory
Historical criticism (Literature)
Literature -- Philosophy
Reader Response Criticism
Psychoanalysis and Literature

There are more like this, but you get the idea.

Journal articles will often identify their theoretical underpinnings, but they are usually not the best way to begin to understand a school of thought.

Journals

Here are some tools you can use to identify the journals that are most important in your field of interest.

MLA Directory of Periodicals

The Directory of Periodicals provides information about journals that publish articles within the scope of the MLAIB.

Detailed information including the journal's scope, earliest publication date, publication policies and some information for authors.
Narrower in scope than some other lists of periodicals; it may not include everything in a field, especially an interdisciplinary one.

Ulrichsweb.com

Ulrich's Web provides bibliographic information on journals across all disciplines.

Less detailed than the Directory of Periodicals, but broader in scope.
Covers popular magazines as well as scholarly journals, but it clearly identifies the audience for each journal.

Dictionaries

The Oxford English Dictionary is the comprehensive, authoritative dictionary of the English language and provides not only definitions but extensive historical notes. This electronic version is continually updated to reflect etymological research and changes in the language. Entries can also be browsed alphabetically. The OED online is also available through the list of databases on the library home page. If you would like to take a look at the older, print version of the OED, it is available on Table 3.

CUNY+ Catalog: CUNY+ searches both print and electronic resources on the level of books and journals (not chapters or articles).

The easiest way to find a type of item (such as a dictionary) is often through the subject headings. When you find a useful item, choose “Browse a subject headings list” to see similar subject headings. You may need to browse back and forth in the subject headings to find the one you want.

Example: English Language Dictionaries (Search under Subject).

Physical browsing works too. The dictionaries are stored in the reference section and have call numbers starting with PE1625 through PE1628.

You may also want to look for dictionaries specific to your author or topic. You can search the catalog for those too, or just browse the books related to your author in the reference section of the library.

Citations & Bibliographies

MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 6^th ed.

Stacks (Call # A-L Level 4; Call # P-Z Level 5) - LB2369 .G53 2003
Desk Reference Level 3 - LB2369 .G53 2003
Online MLA Formatting and Style Guide from the OWL at Purdue

RefWorks is a database for research management, writing, and collaboration.

Export citations automatically from other databases to RefWorks. In most databases, this is accomplished by means of a link that reads either “Citation Tools” or “Export Citations.”
Use folders to organize citations.
Citation lists and bibliographies can be generated using many standard citation formats, including MLA.
A code is needed to access RefWorks from Home—please ask at the Library Research Office (RO 307).