You can use Literary Criticism in Reference books and Reference databases to start your project. 

Use reference to: 

• Learn about general schools of thought and literary movements

• Learn about an author

• Get an overview of critical approaches to a particular text

Here are a few useful reference resources:

Gale Literature

Gale Literature has a range of information on literature.

• You can find background information to get started on research with author interviews, topic overviews, reviews and biographies.

• You can also dig deeper with both excerpts and full text of scholarly literary criticism. 

Follow these steps to search: 

(click on the images to enlarge)

1. Type in your author, literary work or topic (theme or theory, for ex) at keyword, work or person by or about. e.g. "Naylor Gloria"

2. Use the menu on the top to focus your research, e.g. stay on "Literature Criticism" or look at "Biographies", "Reviews & News" etc. 

3. Skim the results list and click on a title to read the article. Pay attention to word count as a starting point to finding articles of substance. If it's too short, it will not say much.

4. Dig deeper with literary criticism

• Limit to "Literature Criticism" to find a range of analysis of your literary works. Some of the literary criticism in Gale Literature is scholarly, some of it is written for students or for the general public. Note that Gale Literature also contains excerpts of key scholarly criticism.

Other tips for refining results:

• Under Limit Results, you can search for articles within a particular collection. This is a useful tool for finding the most relevant articles.

• At By Product/Series:

• Click on the small drop-down arrow at All Electronic Resources

• Uncheck the box All Electronic Resources

• Check the box next to the collection you want.

• Use the Electronic Resources Collections Contemporary Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Drama Criticism, Short Story Criticism, etc. to get some full-text and some excerpts of key scholarly literary criticism on literary works and authors.

This is a great way to get a sense of the literary conversation on a work!

Finding Criticism in Books

Use the Gale Literary Criticism books listed below and Gale Literature Literary Criticism online to get an overview of criticism on a text or author. 

The series features excerpts of key criticism, author interviews, and more. 

• With the red, brown, and purple print reference books:
  • Use the Author Index at the back of each volume to see criticism across volumes and series.
  • Search the Cumulative Title Index (separate, small, slick volume on the shelf) for your short story's title to see all criticism within that particular series.