English 220: Introduction to Writing about Literature: Scholarly Articles -- Literary

Literary databases

Listening in on the whole scholarly conversation about a topic requires searching in multiple databases. Databases offer lists of sources (mostly scholarly journal articles, but also some book chapters and entire books). Each database draws on different lists of sources. The lists they contain often overlap, but almost always also differ. That's why it is worthwhile to search all  databases that specialize in the subject area you are working on (in this case, literature). To learn efficient ways of searching databases, see this guide's "Tips for searching databases" page. Try searching for your topic keywords in these literary database search boxes:

MLA International Bibliography

MLA is the traditional, go-to database for literary studies. In addition to general, keyword searches, try searching for titles of books using the “Name of Work” search in the drop-down menu (i.e., “dubliners,” “twilight of the superheroes”). Try using the “Person—About” search (i.e., "Joyce, James" and "Eisenberg, Deborah". If you are interested in relationships between authors, try searching both of them at once.

JSTOR

Full-text, multidisciplinary database, with no indexing.  This means that you have to be careful that you match your search with the words used in the articles you are searching, and that you need to winnow out those which merely mention your topic of interest without discussing them in any detail.  However, because this is a different kind of search, it sometimes turns up other materials, especially if you are searching for a particular phrase.

Project Muse

Much like JSTOR, this is a full-text, multidisciplinary database.

Web of Science

Multidisciplinary index to journal literature in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Offers the option to find cited references, which are the authors lists of articles used in their research.  Journal coverage in the social sciences, arts, and humanities is not comprehensive.  Includes conference proceedings in the sciences and social sciences.

Humanities Source (EBSCO)

Humanities Source covers not only literature, but also history, art, and drama. This makes it a good place to search for materials you may not always find in MLA and other literary databases.

Literature Resource Center

The Literature Resource Center (LRC) is a full-text electronic database that provides on-line access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analysis of authors and their works from every age and literary discipline. Literature Resource Center covers more than 124,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists and other writers, with in-depth coverage of 2,000 of the most-studied authors.

Literary Criticism Online

Artemis Literary Sources

Twayne's Authors Series

Google Scholar

OneSearch

Searches the CUNY library catalog as well as numerous (but not all) databases. Produces a Google-like jumble of results.