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This course guide highlights appropriate research materials to use for literary analysis.
* NEW * Videos and resources produced by Ryan Tucci, First Year Experience Teaching and Learning Technician at MacOdrum Library.
Learning Outcomes;
- Students will find information from appropriate resources for their essays.
- Students properly cite appropriate document sources (for example primary and secondary materials)
- Students evaluate information sources for relevance, authority, currency and perspective using the CRAP guidelines.
We [I] would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people.
Reference Sources
Use reference materials such as bibliographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and guides to locate relevant information on a topic.
Suggested Reference and eResources:
- A dictionary of contemporary world history / Christopher Riches and Jan Palmowski (2019)
- A Dictionary of critical theory / Ian Buchanan (2018)and
- A Dictionary of world history / Oxford University Press (2015)
- Key Concepts in Literary Theory / Julian Wolfreys et. al. (2016)
- The Oxford Companion to United States History / Boyer, Paul S. et. al.(2001-)
- Cambridge Companion to...
Handbooks dedicated to single authors or literary movements. Best to use keywords to narrow the results - Encyclopedia of Literary Modernism / Paul Poplawski (2003)
- Nineteenth-century literature criticism / Thomson Gale (Firm) (1981-)
If you know which journal you would like to consult, look up the title of the journal (NOT the title of the article) in Omni If you do not have a particular journal in mind, you should consult a database.
If you know which database you would like to search, you can select it by title on the library web site.
If you do not know which database to use, go to databases by subject.
General Searching in the Databases
If you are looking for articles by a particular author, select AUTHOR from the drop-down list.
If you are searching for a particular article, enter the title and select TITLE from the drop-down list.
For KEYWORD/SUBJECT or key phrase searching, most database search engines encourage you to put your related terms (OR searching) in the same row, and your unrelated concepts (AND searching) in separate rows. See more information about searching on the Omni Search Tips page.
Tip: Most databases provide a way to restrict the results of a search to peer-reviewed or academic articles. This may be done differently from database to database: check the help pages for more information.
Recommended Databases
Primary Sources (Books)
In the study of English literature, the actual text is the primary source.
Use Omni to locate the book, poetry collection, short stories, etc. Select Books or eBooks from the drop down menu. Enter the author's name with the surname first and type the title in the search box.
If you do not have a specific resource in mind, try a Keyword/Subject search.
Tip: Once you find one or more good resources, look at the SUBJECT headings that have been used to describe them. Follow those SUBJECT heading links to find related resources.
Suggested Subject Headings
- Flash fiction
- English fiction - History and criticism - 20th century
- Postmodernism
- Modernism (Literature) - Great Britain
- English Literature
- Literature, Comparative
- Poetry Explication
Other tips: Remember to include Boolean operators, AND, OR, NOT in your search query to obtain meaningful results:
Example: Atwood NOT Margaret Laurence
The Oxford Guide to Library Research (2015) by Thomas Mann is one of the most essential books for learning how to formulate a research question and then go about answering it.
The Concise Oxford Companion to English literature / Daniel Stringer, Hahn, et. al. (2007)
Literary Theory, An Introduction / Terry Eagleton (2008)
Theory of Literature / Paul H. Fry (2012)
Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism / Michael Groden, Martin Kreiswirth (1997-)
Literary Genre - Short Stories
- Existentialist Short Stories
- Fantasy Short Stories
- Gothic Short Stories
- Historical Short Stories
- Speculative Fiction Short Stories
Consult the following reference resources for ideas:
- The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms / Chris Baldick (2008)
- A New Handbook of Literary Terms / (2007) David, Mikics (2007)
- The Book of Literary Terms : the Genres of Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, and Scholarship / Turco Lewis (1999) PN44.5.I45 (Online at Internet Archive)
Searching for a Genre:
Construct a key phrase such as “American fiction” or "Latin American fiction" and try it in Omni. You will obtain results about fiction in general and about specific fiction with this particular topic.
Tip: Click the hyper-linked subject headings in the new search tool to find additional titles:
- Literature - Terminology
- Literary form - Terminology
- Literature - Themes, motives - Terminology
- Criticism - Terminology
Library Discovery Search Tool
Use Omni to find books, eBooks, newspapers, films, grey literature, conference proceedings, journals and journal articles. Remember to also check other databases to search for individual article titles.
Begin with a KEYWORD or SUBJECT term search.
Suggested Subject Headings
- Short stories, American - History and criticism
- Short Story
- Gothic fiction (literary genre)
- Feminism - Bibliography
- Magic realism (Literature)
- Postmodernism - Bibliography
Finding Book Reviews
- Book Reviews in Print Serial Subscriptions
- in Gale Literature and MLA International Bibliography limit your results to Book Reviews
- JSTOR - Search Advanced Search and then Narrow By Item type: Review.
- New York Times: Book Review
- Book Review Digest Retrospective 1908 - 1982
Genres
In the context of analyzing literature, these are the different literary genres:
- Drama
- Fiction
- Non-Fiction
- Poetry
- Epic Poetry
- Lyric Poetry
- Prose
Browsing for a Genre
Consult the following electronic reference resources for ideas:
- The Oxford dictionary of literary terms / Chris Baldick (2015)
- A New Handbook of Literary Terms / David Mikics (2007)
- Ruffner's allusions--cultural, literary, religious, and historical a thematic dictionary / Frederick G Ruffner (2009)
Searching for a Genre:
Construct a key phrase such as “American fiction” and try it in Omni. You will obtain results about fiction in general and about specific fiction with this particular topic.
Tip: Click the hyper-linked subject headings in Omni to find additional titles:
- Literature - Terminology
- Literary form - Terminology
- Literature - Themes, motives - Terminology
- Criticism - Terminology
Modernism
This guide lists resources and works, as well as reference materials containing background analysis about the 20th Century period. This era is also called Modernism. For information about other literary periods, see Literary Periods and History Timeline.
Below is a selection of books in our library:
- Encyclopedia of Literary Modernism / Paul Poplawski (2003)
- The Intellectual Life of the British working classes / Jonathan Rose (2010)
- Literature, Modernism and Myth : Belief and Responsibility in the Twentieth Century / Michael Bell (1997)
- Modernism a short introduction / David Ayers (2008)
- Modernism and the Ideology of History : Literature, politics and the past / Louise Blakeney Williams (2002)
- Outsiders together : Virginia and Leonard Woolf / Natania Rosenfeld (2000) (online) (online)
- Daily modernism : the literary diaries of Virginia Woolf, Antonia White, Elizabeth Smart, and Anaïs Nin / Elizabeth Podnieks (2000)
Tip: Add the word “sources” to a keyword search to find information on the event, author or period:
For example: Philip Roth sources OR James Joyce sources
A few other key phrases to mention:
“History and criticism” – use to locate a type of literature, author, or place
For example: Latin American liteature -- History and criticism
“in literature” – Result list finds books about the topic or place and its treatment in literature
For example: Women in literature
“intellectual life” – Finds information about the culture in a particular place and time or among people:
For example: Harlem Renaissance intellectual life
“literary history” - Use to search about a topic or place
For example: Caribbean literary history
Sites - Modernism
- LiteraryHistory.com
Site contains reputable online reference materials, and includes modern and post-modern literary criticism - Modernism Lab (Yale University)
"The Modernism Lab, a virtual space dedicated to collaborative research into the roots of literary modernism, was compiled from 2005 to 2012." - The Modernist Journals Project
"The Modernist Journals Project is a major resource for the study of modernism in the English-speaking world, with periodical literature as its central concern."
Sites - Poetry
- Analyzing Poetry (University of Texas at Austin)
- The Poetry Archive
- The Poetry Foundation
- Writing about Poetry
Writing Resources
- Amherst College Resources for Writers
- Harvard College Writing Center and Resources
- Writing at University : a Guide for Students / Phyllis Creme and Mary R. Lea (2008)
- Thinking on the Page : a College Student's Guide to Effective Writing / Gwen Hyman and Martha Schulman (2015)
- Writing Effective Course Assignments : a Guide to Non-degree and Undergraduate Students / Elia Shabani Mligo (2017)
- Writing Essays and Preparing Thesis (MacOdrum Library) This tip sheet lists a variety of style manuals and guides that cover the procedures for writing term papers.
- Writing Services (Centre for Student Support) - Get help from peers and watch your mark go up as a result of your tutoring session.
Citing
- MLA Citation Style
- MLA Formatting and Style Guide (Purdue OWL)
- Concordia University MLA Citation Style
