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ENGL 126 Research Writing: Humanities (Moreno)

Literary Cities and Spaces

Find Scholarly Literary Criticism

Find Scholarship in Library Databases

Use a library database to search for and find scholarly articles.

Important Search Tips:
  • Remember to limit your search to scholarly (peer-reviewed) journal articles. With books, you'll need to assess if they're scholarly.
  • Remember to try different keywords and subject terms, and to try multiple databases.
  • Look for relevant subject terms to help you find articles that engage with your analysis. You will see Subject Terms under article titles and under Subjects as a limiter. You can also browse for Subjects in the Thesaurus or Subject Terms.
  • Click on a title that sounds interesting. Read the abstract (summary) to decide if it's relevant, before you read the whole article.
  • Try adding the keyword "literature" or the subject term: "literary criticism" to a search, to focus your search on literary approaches to these questions.
  • You can search for information specifically on your text, but you will find many more relevant titles if you search more broadly. Look for analysis of other works by your author or of key concepts and then synthesize those ideas into your discussion.
    • Ex: you will not find many scholarly articles on Xiaolu Guo in Holman Library databases. Try searching instead for scholarship on the issues she engages.
  • To find relevant and useful articles, you will need to consider many more.
  • Look over the works cited page of one relevant scholarly article to find leads to other sources. Track them down.

One Search

Holman Library's One Search looks in all library databases at once. 

  • To find only scholarly journal articles, be sure to check the box for Scholarly Peer-Reviewed Journals. Do remember that books (and book chapters!) can be scholarly too.
  • To cast a wider search, check the box to include articles that are not full text. If we don't have it, you can easilty request to borrow an article for free through InterLibrary Loan.

Sample Search for Scholarship in ProQuest

This sample search in ProQuest Combined Databases used three different keyword phrases and was limited to Peer Reviewed articles. Keywords were (fiction OR literature OR novels) AND diaspora AND identity.

It still returned over 900 results. My next step could be to add an additional search term, or keyword, to focus in on a concept. I could add a term of my own, such as a specific country or an author. I could also review the Subjects list on the results screen (seen below in image 2) for ideas.

If you are not sure what search terms to use, let the database help you! Use the Subject Terms suggested to Refine your Results. Add just one at a time. Or browse the Thesaurus (Subjects in Academic Search Complete) for relevant search terms.

ProQuest Fiction AND Diaspora AND Identity limited to peer reviewed sources

 

Academic Databases are "discovery tools." Use them to generate ideas, find search terms or narrow and focus research:

No Library Has it All

Google Scholar Search

Uh oh? Not finding enough?

What to do when you cannot find much written about your story or author

When you do research on current authors and works, sometimes there has not yet been a lot written about them. That's okay!

Scholarship represents your original thinking about a text or theme in literature. As part of your analysis you can integrate relevant sources, even if they are not about your specific text. Think about:

  • larger themes or issues, such as, but not limited to, refugees, identity, religion, nation, or colonialism
  • other works by your author
  • analysis of the work of another author that you can apply to your interpretation of your short story or novel
  • a literary movement, genre or body of literature, such as Pakistani literature, Southeast Asian authors, literature of the diaspora, post-colonial literature

Below is an example of ideas and analysis about Minaret by Leila Aboulela. This could be a source to use if I were writing about the same ideas in a different work by a different author. 

(click on image to enlarge)

Abstract of analysis of Minaret by Aboulela. Highlighted sections indicate ideas i could apply to other works

Example: The highlighted sections of this article abstract (I would then read the whole article) might support an analysis of another novel or short story that explores how women navigate different spaces of religion, nation, and identity by claiming the veil as a symbol that both excludes them and allows them to define a new space

Scholarly Criticism vs General Criticism

Contrast the two linked articles to see some of the differences between an article written for the general public (can be students) and a scholarly article. Each can play a role in research.

Article Databases

Use a library database to search for and find scholarly articles.

  • Remember to limit your search to scholarly (peer-reviewed) journal articles to find in-depth analysis.
  • Beware book reviews in scholarly publications! The article itself needs to be scholarly, not just the publication.

To find relevant and useful articles, you will need to consider many more. Try:

  • A range of different keywords
  • Subject terms
  • Multiple databases
  • InterLibrary loan
  • Applying relevant discussion of one text to another similar text.

You will likely not find much written in English on your author or text. Try searching for criticism on the literature of the country or city, or of an idea such as diaspora, east west, nation, identity, space, artchitecture, etc. 

Get Books and Articles from Other Libraries

Interlibrary Loans

Get books and articles from other libraries
  1. Click on the link above. Enter search words to find books that are owned by libraries across the United States
  2. Note down the author, title, publisher, publication date and ISBN number of the book
  3. Make an Interlibrary Loan Request using the following link so that the book can be sent to Green River's Holman Library for you to borrow: Note: this process may take one week
  1. To see an example of how to make a request, click below: