INTRODUCTION

The Learning Resources Center has a variety of information to help you with research in the area of literature. When researching a piece of literature and its author, it is good to remember that information may be found from many different perspectives. Literature can be approached directly by looking for the title of the work and the name of the author. Information can also be found by approaching it by its genre, by what the work is about, by the culture, race, or nationality of its author, by the time period it was written in, or by a literature trend such as romanticism.

It is always best to start any research that you need early. This allows time for subjects to be narrowed and more clearly defined. Also, if the Learning Resource Center does not have the resources that you need, it may be able to borrow the source from another library through the interlibrary loan system. The most current information will generally be found in magazines and reference books. When researching in the humanities, this is not usually as important because humanities sources tend to be more timeless. An attempt to look for current interpretation of a work should still be made though to see if there is now a difference in the interpretation.

Remember to ask for any help that you need and to start researching early!

Access the library's web page (http://www.northern.wvnet.edu/~library) to start your research.

CD-ROM DATABASES

Discovering Authors provides full-text essays on 400 authors including novelists, poets, dramatists, short story writers, and others from a variety of countries and time periods. Information includes a biography, excerpts from critical essays, a bibliography of what the author has written, and a list of other sources about the author.

Discovering Authors may be searched in several ways.

1. By Author Name

2. By Title

3. By Subject Term/Character

4. By using Personal Data on Authors

5. By using an Advanced Search Mode which searches any work or phrase that appears in the text.

ON-LINE CATALOG

One of the best places to start research is with the online catalog. It can be used to see if the Learning Resources Center has the work or if we have criticism about the work. Individual short stories and poems will not be listed because they will be part of another work. For example, they may be found in an anthology. An author name may be searched. Other examples of subject headings are listed below.

Poetry

Poetry, Modern

Short Stories

American Literature

HELPFUL REFERENCE BOOKS

LITERATURE AS A WHOLE

Articles on American Literature Ref. Z 1225 .L49 Wh

Cyclopedia of Literary Characters Ref. PN 44 .M34 1963 Wh, NM

A Handbook to Literature Ref. PN 41 .H6 1986 Wh, We, NM

A Library of Literary Criticism: Modern British Literature Ref. PR 473 .T4  Wh

Magill's Literary Annual Ref. PN 44 .M35 Wh, We

Masterplots Ref. PN 44 .M33 Wh

Oxford Companion to English Literature Ref. PR 19 .O9 1988  Wh

AUTHORS:

As Others Saw Them: Observations of Eminent Literary Figures by Their Contemporaries Ref. PR 108 .L37 1985 Wh

British Authors of the Nineteenth Century Ref. PR 451 .K8 Wh, We, NM

Contemporary Authors Ref. Z 1224 .C6 Wh, NM

Current Biography Yearbook Ref. CT 100 .C8 Wh, We

Dictionary of British and American Women Writers Ref. PR 113 .D5 1987 Wh

Great Writers of the English Language Ref. PR 106 .G69 Wh

Hawthorne, Melville, Stephen Crane: A Critical Bibliography Ref. Z 1225 .G76 Wh

Major 20^th Century Writers Ref. PN 771 .M3 1991 Wh

Masterpieces of African-American Literature Ref. PS 153 .N5 M264 1992  Wh

Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism of English & American Authors Ref. PR 83 .M73 1966 Wh,NM

DRAMA:

Contemporary Dramatists Ref. PR 106 .V5  Wh

Dramatic Criticism Index Ref. Z 5781 .B8 Wh

Play Index Ref. Z 5781 .P6 1949-1977 Wh, NM

20^th Century Plays in Synopsis Ref. PN 6112.5 .S68 Wh

SHORT STORIES:

Short Fiction Criticism Ref. Z 5917 .S5 T5  Wh

Short Story Index Ref. Z 5917 .S5 C6 Wh, NM

Twentieth Century Short Story Explication Ref. Z 5917 .S5 W33 Wh, We, NM

POETRY:

Contemporary Poets of the English Language Ref. Z 2014 .P7 C63 1971  Wh

Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Ref. PN 1021 .E5 Wh

Granger's Index of Poetry Ref. PN 1022 .G7 1997 Wh

Poetry Handbook: A Dictionary of Terms Ref. Z 2014 .P7 K8  Wh

HELPFUL WEBSITES

American Literature Online- www.missouri.edu/~engmo/amlit.html

The English Server -Collection of Humanities sites (Carnegie Mellon University)-

english-www.hss.cmu.edu/

Literary Gothic Page- www.siue.edu/~jvoller/gothic.html

Literary Kicks (Beat Generation Writers)- www.charm.net/~brooklyn/litkicks.html

Literary Resources on the Net -Search by key word or browse categories-andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/

Myths & Legends- pubpages.unh.edu/~cbsiren/myth.html

Project Bartleby Archive (Columbia University)- www.cc.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/

Romanticism On the Net -An electronic journal of romantic Studies- users.ox.ac.uk/~scat0385/

Victorian Web (Brown University)- landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/victov.html

Virginia Woolf Web- www.aianet.ne.jp/~orlando/vww/vwbib.html

Women in American Literature- www.kutztown.edu/faculty/reagan/lit.html

Writing Essentials Online- www.wwnorton.com/WE

SHAKESPEARE:

Early Modern Literary Studies (EMLS)-A journal of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century English Literature. Go to "All Issues" then "Articles" for Shakespeare related critical discussions.- www.humanities.ualberta.ca/emls/emlshome.html

Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet -An annotated guide to Shakespeare resources on the Web.- daphne.palomar.edu/shakespeare/sitemap.htm

Shakespeare Authorship Page- www.clark.net/pub/tross/ws/will.html

Shakespeare Magazine- www.shakespearemag.com/

Shakespeare on the Internet: Sites of Interest- web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Annex/ShakSites1.html

Shakespeare Web- www.shakespeare.com/