New York University Research Guides - English and American Literature

Database Search Tips

Here are tips for better search results in databases. This usage works on most databases, but check 'Help' sections for supported search syntax.

Boolean: (using operators: and, or, not)

mother and father searches for occurrences of both words within scope defined.

mother or father searches for one or all, but both are not required.

mother not father searches for occurrences of the word ‘mother’ without use of the word ‘father.’

(mother not father) and god searches for occurrences of the word ‘mother’ without use of the word ‘father,’ then also requires the word ‘god.’

Truncation:

art* searches for art, arts, artistic, artful, etc.

Wildcard:

m?n searches for man and men.

Literary Criticism

Literature Online (LION)

Literature Online allows simultaneous searching of MLAIB and ABELL. One can also select an individual resource in order to use advanced search fields:

MLA International Bibliography: Provides about 2 million records of books and articles published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. Provides online access to many of those articles. Covers items published from around 1920 to the present. Provides online access to many journal articles. NOT INCLUDED: Reviews of literary and scholarly works.

Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature: Unlike MLA, ABELL focuses exclusively on British, American, and Commonwealth literature. Within these subject areas, it provides about 900,000 records of monographs, journal articles, critical editions of literary works, book reviews, and collections of essays published from 1920 to the present. Provides online access to many journal articles.

Literature Criticism Onli ne

With Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, you have the benefits of Internet access to extensive biographical and critical information combined with subject-term accessibility and other powerful search options.

Literature Resource Center

Resource for research on literary topics, authors, and their works. Its coverage includes all genres and disciplines, all time periods, and all regions of the world.Includes links to: Dictionary of literary biography, Contemporary authors, Contemporary literary criticism, and more, including full texts of critical articles.

The Year's Work in English Studies

An evaluative narrative review of scholarly work on English language and literatures written in English that was published during the year being covered. Has included chapters on American literature since volume 35 (1954) and on the Commonwealth literatures since volume 63 (1982).

The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

Provides full-text and full-image access to over 300 humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from 60 scholarly publishers. Coverage of these journals typically begins at some point within the last fifteen years and extends up through the latest issue. Many key journals in literature and theory are accessible here.

Times Literary Supplement Centenary Archive

The TLS Centenary Archive offers more than 250,000 reviews, letters, poems, and articles in over 5,000 issues of the TLS in the context in which they were originally published.All are fully indexed and searchable by author and/or contributor and the identities of the contributors to the TLS who were published anonymously until 1974 are disclosed for the first time and augmented by biographical sketches.

American Literary Scholarship: An Annual

An evaluative narrative review of scholarly work on periods of American literature or on major writers published during the year being covered.

Multi-disciplinary resources:

Periodicals Archive Online (PAO)

Provides full-text and full-image access to hundreds of journals published in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and areas of general popular interest. Each periodical is covered back to its first issue, regardless of when it began publication. International in scope, PAO covers periodicals in a number of Western languages. Any search of PAO now includes in its scope British Periodicals Collections I and II. Publication dates of articles covered in PAO run from 1665 to 2000.

JSTOR

Provides full-text and full-image access to important scholarly journals across many disciplines extending back to their first issues and up to issues published from one to five years ago.

Project Muse

Project MUSE is a unique collaboration between libraries and publishers providing 100% full-text, affordable and user-friendly online access to high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from scholarly publishers. MUSE began in 1993 as a pioneering joint project of the Johns Hopkins University Press and the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at JHU. Grants from the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities allowed MUSE to go live with JHU Press journals in 1995. Journals from other publishers were first incorporated in 2000, with additional university press and scholarly society publishers joining in each subsequent year.