First Year English WorkshopLegacy of the Mediterranean

Library Research, Part II

Professor Shelly FredmanLibrarian Jenna Freedman

October 15, 2013

Databases: an Introduction

What• Articles• Book chapters• Dissertations• ProceedingsWhat what• Citations• Abstracts• Html full text• Pdf of article

Why• Secondary sources• Literature review• Current awareness• Shorter, more focused

works (than books)• Multiple simultaneous users

Literary, critical, or close reading • Include name of text or

author in search• Add terms to explore an

aspect of the text that interests you

• E.g., characters, themes, places, etc.

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Image from ManageWP blog post by Tom Ewer

MLA

• Literary criticism• eLink• Clues:

• Articles & chapters vs. proceedings & dissertations• Your age or younger• Citations & cited by

Historical • Include words or phrases

important to historical context– date-specific (16th or

sixteenth century)– Era-specific (Elizabethan)– Geographical (England)

• Do not include text title or author

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Image from Wikimedia Commons: Exponate im hauseigenen Museum

Historical Abstracts

• Historical period• Truncation *• Limits: date, subject, book reviews

Theoretical • Include words or phrases

related to your theorist or lens– Select discipline specific

databases (e.g., gender studies, philosophy, psychology, etc.)

– Use theorist's name or philosophy in search term in interdisciplinary database

– Consider reference sources

• You may or may not include text title or author

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Public domain image Rorschach1WithMarksCrop from Wikimedia Commons

Find Articles • Theory• Facets• Limits

How to choose?

• Author and publisher's perspectives/point of view.

• Relevance to your research• Currency of scholarship• Sources cited by this source (look in the

bibliography)• Sources citing this source (Google Scholar is an

easy, though imprecise way to check)

Remember

Your Personal Librarian

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