Research - Assignment | Literary Analysis (Barr) - Research Guides at Lone Star College

Online Library Materials

General Search Tips

Leave the work title in quote marks when you search to get an exact match.
- Yes: "Odour of Chrysanthemums"
- No: Odour of Chrysanthemums
Include author name with AND, especially for vague titles
- Yes: "The Necklace" AND Maupassant
- Yes: "The Storm" AND Chopin

Yes, be prepared to search multiple places. Short stories are short -- there's only so much criticism one can support! You will strike out completely (0 results) in some databases.

Scroll down for tips on searching for literary analysis in these databases.

Bloom's Literature (Infobase) This link opens in a new window
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Essays and criticism examining the lives of great authors and their works throughout history.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
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JSTOR isn't only focused on literature but does contain criticism! Start by searching for work and author.
Literature Criticism Online (Gale) This link opens in a new window
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Critical essays are selected from leading sources, including published journals, magazines, books, reviews, diaries, newspapers, pamphlets, and scholarly papers.
Includes Short Story Criticism: Presents full-text literary criticism on the works of short-story writers of all nations, cultures, and time periods.
Literary Reference Center (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
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Criticisms, synopses, and reviews of authors and their works, full text poems, short stories, and classic novels, as well as full text from over 400 literary journals.
Access will end on 31 Aug. 2023 due to changes in the TexShare program. Learn more.
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
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Like JSTOR, this one isn't limited to literary content, but it does include it. It defaults to showing content we don't have access to, so watch out for that -- you can filter your results to exclude.

Search Tips for Specific Databases

By default, Bloom's will sort your search results into different tabs based on what they are. You want the second tab of results, Criticism.

Search JSTOR for the title of the story in quote marks.

If you need to include author, add AND author to the search, by either typing it in with the title [ "odour of chrysanthemums" AND lawrence] or by using the "Search within results" after searching for just the title.

Gale's Literature Criticism Online link will take you into Advanced Search. Do use quote marks, and do change the "field" dropdowns to specify "name of work" and "person-by or about" respectively.

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As you type into the search fields, pay attention to the auto-suggested terms. If/when there's a match, just click to select!

When you get your search results, pay attention to the "literature criticism" filter.

Each result is also tagged with its type -- you want "critical essay." Pay attention to the word count, as well -- a critical essay that's only 200 words is likely not going to be much use.

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Do include quote marks on the story title and attach the author name with AND [shown below: "the necklace" AND maupassant]

In the left column of the results view, limit Source Types to Literary Criticism. Otherwise you'll have a mix of criticism, summary, and other things that you don't want for this assignment to wade through.

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Like the others, search for the name of the work in quotes AND author name ["odour of chrysanthemums" AND lawrence].

First filter your results to "only content I have access to" to get articles you can read without special requests. You also want to exclude "reviews" from your results, as those aren't the same as literary criticism.

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