English and Literature Research Guide

This online guide is developed for students in English and literature classes. It provides a recommended list of resources geared towards completing research assignments.

Finding Books

Hints

  • Use the keyword search to search for books about your topic.
  • Check the campus location - items can be at Middletown or Fauquier.
  • You'll need the call number to locate items on the shelf.

Finding E-Books

Hints

  • To find e-books, use the keyword search and include the keyword netlibrary.
  • You can view the full-text of the e-books from any computer on either campus.
  • To use a NetLibrary book off-campus, first you must create a NetLibrary account while you are on campus.
  • More information is available here.

Finding Articles

  • Use these database to find articles on your topic from academic journals.

Full-Text

These article databases include full-text articles, so you can read, print, or e-mail some of the articles online.

  • Literature Resource Center (InfoTrac)  
    Access biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of more than 120,000 authors. Includes full-text excerpts from books, as well as from magazines, journals, and newspapers.
  • MLA Modern Language Association International Bibliography (InfoTrac)
    Provides access to more than 1.7 million bibliographic citations to journal articles, books, and dissertations from 1963 to the present in academic disciplines such as: language, literature, folklore, linguistics, literary theory and criticism, and the dramatic arts.
  • Academic Search Complete  
    A one-stop source for journal and periodical articles on a wide range of topics: business, computers, current events, economics, education, environmental issues, health care, hobbies, humanities, law, literature and art, politics, science, social sciences, sports, technology, and many general interest topics. Millions of full-text articles.
  • Humanities International Complete  
    Provides full text of hundreds of humanities journals, books and other published sources from around the world, with full text for more than 890 journals.
  • Project MUSE  
    Full-text journals published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Journals in the humanities and social sciences primarily.
  • Duke University Press Journals
    Full-text journals from Duke UP, primarily in the humanities and social sciences.
  • Oxford University Press Journals  
    Full-text journals published by the Oxford University Press in the sciences, humanities, and social sciences.

Hints: If the article you want isn't available full-text, the full-text article might be available in another database. If you find an article you would like to read, click the "Linc it" icon to search other databases for that full-text article.

Reference Materials

  • African-American poetry, 1760-1900  
    Full-text of over 2,500 poems, based on William French's bibliography, Afro-American Poetry and Drama 1760-1975.
  • American poetry database  
    Includes 40,356 full-text poems from 1,288 works by 209 poets, along with six landmark anthologies of American poetry. The database gathers the works of the most influential American poets, from the Colonial period to the early twentieth century.
  • English Poetry  
    English Poetry contains poems in English from Anglo-Saxon times to the end of the nineteenth century by writers from the British Isles. Overall the database contains over 165,000 poems which have been drawn from about 4,500 separate printed sources.
  • English Verse Drama  
    Contains more than 2,200 works by around 500 named and over 300 anonymous works, from the Shrewsbury Fragments of the late thirteenth century through the unparalleled output of the Elizabethan and Jacobean period to the end of the nineteenth century.
  • Gale Virtual Reference Library (InfoTrac)
    eBook collection that includes multi-volume encyclopedias, biographical collections, business plan handbooks, company history compilations, consumer health references, and specialized reference sources. Subjects covered include Arts, Biography, Business, Education, Environment, History, Law, Literature, Medicine, Multicultural Studies, Nation and World, Religion, Science, and Social Science.
  • Oxford English Dictionary (OED)  
    Online access to the most comprehensive English-language dictionary.
  • Oxford Reference Online  
    Full-text access to hundreds of Oxford reference books in all subject areas.
  • Dissertation Abstracts  (FirstSearch)  
    Index to dissertations and theses in all subject areas.

Trusted Websites

Creating Works Cited List in MLA Format

You may be creating a works cited list in MLA format. These Web sites will help you with APA style.

Off-Campus Access to Online Resources

To use library databases off-campus, you can log into it with your VCCS username and password.

Click on a database link and you will be asked to enter your VCCS username and password. This is the same password you use for Blackboard or MyVCCS.

Only registered students can access library databases from off-campus.

 
Last modified: 2009-09-17 10:49:20