| The following is a selected list of resources
for CSUSM courses in Literature. For further assistance, contact Judith
Downie, Humanities Librarian. |
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Journal
Articles -- Literature
To look for articles in journals, you will
need to start with a research database.
The following databases provide full text or abstracts
of articles from thousands of journals and
other sources.
You can also browse a list of individual
electronic journals for literature.
Some databases such as MLA do not offer full text of the
articles. Use the
 button
to check our other resources for full text.
Most Useful Project Muse
Full-text coverage for hundreds of scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics
Coverage: 1993→current JSTOR
Contains (EXCEPT for the latest five years) core scholarly journals in sociology, history, economics, political science, mathematics, African-American & Asian studies, literature, humanities, music, and biological, health & general sciences.
Coverage: 1838→2003 MLA
Includes abstracts of articles from critical literary and language journals.
Coverage: 1963→current Contemporary Authors
Biographies and bibliographies of 90,000 authors in the U.S. and around the world.
Coverage: current Twayne's Authors Series
This series provides literary criticism for approximately 600 authors, including critical introductions to the lives and works of writers, the history and influence of literary movements, or the development of literary genres.
Coverage: current Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism
Informative introduction to major people and ideas in the world of literary theory and criticism.
Coverage: current Oxford English Dictionary
A guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past. It includes etymological analysis, listings of variant spellings, and shows pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet
Coverage: current
Also Useful Accessible Archives
A good source for 19th Century American History; includes newspapers on the Civil War and African Americans.
Coverage: 1728→1900 Arts and Letters Daily
Compilation of opinion pieces on current events and book reviews.
Coverage: 1998→current Chicano Database
Abstracts for books, journal articles and other material about Mexican-Americans.
Coverage: 1900→current Dissertations and Theses Database
Dissertations and Theses Database includes digitized dissertations in a variety of subject areas including Art, Communications, Education, History, Linguistics, Literature, and Social Sciences.
Coverage: 1979→current eScholarship
A collection of more than 60 e-books covering international studies, European history and literature. Provided by the California Digital Library and the University of California Press.
Coverage: 1991→current HAPI: Hispanic American Periodicals Index
Indexes journals from 1970 on providing information about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean and Hispanics in the United States.
Coverage: 1970→current ScienceDirect
Provides full text access to over 1,000 journals covering all fields of science.
Coverage: 1995→current Victorian Women Writers Project
Features the works of British women from the Victorian period (1830-1910), including anthologies, novels, political pamphlets, religious tracts, children's books, and volumes of poetry and verse drama.
Coverage: 1830→1910 Wright American Fiction
A collection of nearly 3,000 19th Century American fiction books, available online in full-text.
Coverage: 1851→1875
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Books
Not everything is available on the Internet,
and as old-fashioned as it may seem, the
best place to begin your research is in
your library's collection -- Really! A lot
of time and money is spent on collecting
the best for your courses -- especially
if you are feeling overwhelmed by the project.
To search for books, you need to use a library
catalog. Depending on how much time you
have, you have a couple of options for extending your
search.
Books at Cal
State San Marcos
Library Catalog
Search our local collection of about 250,000
books.
How to Search
the Catalog
The simplest way to get started is by using the default
KEYWORD search. Type in one or two words about your topic
(examples are: magical realism, postcolonial, feminist
literature) to begin your search.
Once you have a list of results (these are book and
journal titles), click on likely titles to view the entire
record.
For more precise searching, look at the SUBJECTS on
items that meet your research needs and follow those links
to find other works on your topic that don't necessarily
use the same terminology that you did in the keyword
search. An example is a broad keyword search on feminist
authors, with a large number of items (145!) returned on
all sorts of women writers. But then you find the subject
heading
Autobiography--Women Authors which is really more
appropriate as you can narrow the paper to women writing
about their own feminist views and by clicking on that
subject heading, you have 46 titles to look at.
Other Options
Circuit (1-3
day delivery)
Search the collections of other San Diego
area libraries -- about 3,000,000 books.
Find and request books directly online;
pick them up at our Library in 1-3 days.
WorldCat
(5-10 day delivery)
Search the collections of libraries world-wide
-- about 52,000,000 books. Find a book
in this database, and fill-out an Interlibrary
Loan delivery request. Books will be
delivered to Library for pickup.
Browse the Book Stacks
Sometimes, just looking through the shelves can turn up
works you would not have considered otherwise. Using the
Library of Congress subject system, Literature is shelved
in the P call number area. The
Wikipedia online encyclopedia provides a list of the
subclasses in the P area so you can see how this is
organized.
Reference
Books
These are a special category and while included in
the library catalog, may NOT have the level of detail in
the catalog record to really help you in finding what
you need. This is where talking to a librarian will help
you a lot!
One example are the literature criticism series
published by Gale. There are over 20 different sets,
that have new volumes added to the shelf at various
times and thousands of authors and titles. How do you
know where to look and what is in each series that might
be helpful to you? The library catalog cannot provide
that level of detail, so use the online (and free)
GALE
LITERARY INDEX that allows you to search by name,
work's title, or custom settings (nationality, birth
year, etc.) The search results will list every Gale
series that has your research topic. Then you just need
to find what the location (call number) is for the sets
owned by CSUSM and refer to the volume numbers you found
in the index. A librarian knows about these tools and
tricks and can help you find and use them!
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Online Resources
CSUSM LTWR home page
CSUSM Writing Center
Other quality
resources on the web
Free Fulltext
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Tutorials &
Tools
Tutorials
Tools
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Bartleby.com provides free access
to reference, verse, fiction and non-fiction
works
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Elements of Style (Strunk, 1918, 1999
through Bartleby.com)
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Gale Literary Index a free-access
index to the contents of the Gale Group
Publishers collections of literary criticism
and biographical information (Dictionary
of Literary Criticism, Nineteenth Century
Criticism and much more)
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Online Writery
(University of Missouri-Columbia)
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Citing Your Sources
As you write your papers in LTWR courses, you'll need to
cite passages and ideas from the sources
you've found. You may find the
following sites useful to supplement Keys for Writers
and the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
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Professional Resources
Literary Market Place
Listings for publishers, agents, manufacturers
and other businesses associated with publishing.
Free users have access to partial content
of the full resource found in Library
Reference at PN161 .L5
Writer's
Market
Similar to LMP with more orientation
to the writer, rather than publisher.
Of special note are tips to novice and
experienced professional writers and a
glossary of terms used in the writing
profession (See "encyclopedia"
link.) (Full resource in Library Reference
at PN161 .W83)
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Organizations, Listservs
& Blogs
Organizations
Listservs
Blogs
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