ENGL 101 English Composition 1 (Weller)

Use this research guide as you work through the Informative Essay assignment.

Find Scholarship on Film

Find the Scholarly Conversation on your Films

Search the sources below to find scholarly film criticism.

  • Note that these databases will also return film reviews and overviews written for the general public and for students. You should also find and use relevant scholarship. Use database limiters for Scholarly Peer Reviewed Journals to find the scholarly conversation.
  • Also note that in the database Gale Literature, Literary Criticism as a limiter includes both mainstream and scholarly sources. You will need to assess.

The library One Search looks in all of our databases at once. This can be helpful. Individual databases can be more helpful at first, if you are looking for useful search terms. 

The screenshots below illustrate sample searches limited to scholarship in the library One Search, Gale Power Search, and ProQuest. 

Sample Searches

One Search for: 

keyword: Frozen AND Subject: Motion picture AND keyword: love

one search

Under Source Type, check Peer-reviewed journal to limit to scholarly journal articles.

one search peer reviewed

In Gale Power Search, use suggested keyword phrases. They tend to be formatted well for this database. 

  • In the image below, I started to type in Get Out, and the database suggested Get Out (motion picture).

click on image to enlarge

Get Out in Gale pOwer search

In ProQuest:

I searched for scholarship on the Spike Jonze film, Her.

  • I used the add a row tool to focus my search, since the word Her gave me very confusing results.
  • I had to add the Director's name to my search to clarify my results. 
  • I set Motion picture as a subject term.
  • I limited to peer reviewed journals only. 
  • I did not limit to full text in case I came across a useful source that I could find elsewhere.

Her and Jonze and motion picture