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Research Guide
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Relevant tools and databases are listed for the four different types of information you will be seeking. Clicking on the name of a particular database will take you to the page within the library's homepage from which you can link to the database itself.
If the sources/strategies below fail you, be sure to seek the assistance of a Reference Librarian either in the library or through our 24-hour reference service.
To begin, click on the type of information you need:
| Biographical Information on an Author | General Literary Criticism of an Author | Literary Criticism of a Specific Play | Reviews of the Performance of a Play |
Literature Resource Center
TIPS: Use the Author Search function (that's the default when you enter the database) to find your author. After your search, notice the little tab,
indicating that you are now looking at biographies of your author. To cite what you find here, use the Guide to Citing Secondary Resources ... which you will find on the English Research Guides page.
Biography Resource Center
TIPS: If you are lucky, you will be presented with a splendid variety of types of biographical information. The "Narrative Biographies" and "Magazine & Newspaper Articles" will be the most useful. Among the former could be a variety of perspectives. Among the latter you could get interviews and such.
Literature Resource Center
TIPS: Use the Author Search function (that's the default when you enter the database) to find your author. Click on the tab,
to look at criticism of the author's works. IMPORTANT NOTE: Everything that comes up here is NOT literary criticism. You can also find general commentary/opinion magazine articles and reviews of performances. You must pick and choose from what is offered. To cite what you find here, use the Guide to Citing Secondary Resources ... which you will find on the English Research Guides page.
Literature Resource Center
This is a database of EXCERPTS from larger works, journal articles, newspaper articles, books, chapters in books, and so on. These are not summaries, but the actual words from the longer works. The portion varies for each. Sometimes it is a small, critical excerpt. Other times, it is almost the entire thing.
TIPS: Select
That will bring you to this search screen:
Put keywords from the title of the work in the top box and change Any words to All words. Then put the author's last name in the second box. It is POSSIBLE to get nothing here, if there isn't anything focusing on that particular play. But check for typos. This database contains only a tiny portion of what is available, though. It is also an index to much more in several different series in the Reference Room. Try looking your play up in the master index by clicking on this button in the blue band at the top of the screen:
This will tell you which books in the reference collection contain more on that work.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Everything that comes up here is NOT literary criticism. You can also find general commentary/opinion magazine articles and reviews of performances. To cite what you find here, use the Guide to Citing Secondary Resources ... which you will find on the English Research Guides page.
Humanities Fulltext
This indexes and provides SOME fulltext for journal articles, mostly scholarly journal articles.
SEARCHING TIPS:
You will be using the top two search boxes:
.
Put the author's last name in the first box and keywords from the title of the work in the 2nd. If the title includes a nice phrase, enclose it in parentheses. For example, if you wanted articles on Sam Shepard's play True West, you would do this:
Then look over to the right of the search boxes where you see this:
You will definitely want to change the first Search For box, containing the author's last name to
notice the colorful icons. The little blue icon
indicates the whole article is available as an html text document. The red icon,
, indicates the article is available as a pdf file. For the results that are NOT available fulltext, click on the little icon with a blue arrow,
, to open another window and automatically do a search in the Library's Electronic Print and Journals List.
As you scroll through your results, mark the ones you want to print/email/save later by clicking in the little box,
, next to it.
To print/email/save, click on the button in the left blue panel
. That will offer you a menu of options. Read them carefully!
You might not want the defaults. Notice that Which records only gets you the ones on the previous page. If you have been marking records, you need to change that for sure.
MLA
MLA indexes books, chapters in books (which it refers to as "book article"), journal articles, and dissertations. Look your citations over carefully to determine which is which! You probably don't want dissertations.
TIPS:
- Start out by clicking on
in the left blue panel.
- Use the pulldown menu,
to select
.
- Search using keywords in the author's name and keywords/phrases in the title of the work you are researching. For example, for information on August Wilson's play entitled The Piano Lesson, you would enter this search statement: august and wilson and piano lesson
- As you scroll through your search results, mark the ones you are most interested in by clicking on the little box at the top of each entry or citation.
- This is just an index. There is no fulltext. To find out if we own the items listed, you will need to look them up in Oscar, if they are books or dissertations, or in the list of electronic and print journals for journal articles. Don't be fooled by the TITLE of a CHAPTER in a book or the TITLE of the ARTICLE in a journal.
Lexis-Nexis Academic
This is where you will find mostly mainstream daily U.S. newspaper reviews of performances, although you will also get some Canadian, Australian, and British papers as well as some weekly U.S. papers. They COULD go back as far as the early 1980s, but the dates are different for each newspaper. For earlier material, try the other sources listed here.
TIPS:
Once you are in Lexis-Nexis Academic click on the
tab.
Use the pulldown menu,
, to select Arts & Sports News.
Use the pulldown menu under
to select
.
Enter a keyword search using the author's name and keywords/phrases from the title of the play in the search box under Step Three. For example, to find reviews of performances of August Wilson's play entitled The Piano Lesson, you would enter this search statement: august and wilson and piano lesson
Because the author's name often appears with the possessive 's, you should truncate the author's last name as in: wilson!
Change the Step Four date range choice to All Available Dates.
New York Times Archive
This database contains the fulltext, as an image, of the NYT from 1851-2003. To find reviews, it is best to use the ADVANCED search mode. On one of the search lines, type the author's last name. On another, put keywords or phrases from the title of the play. Use quotation marks around phrases, as in "true west" or "master harold".If you have any idea of the dates of the performances, use that option!
It is not easy to print in this database, but we have a separate research guide that explains that! Use it.
International Index to the Performing Arts (IIPA)
This index will give you citations to articles in theater, dance, and music magazines and journals, both trade publications and scholarly material.
TIPS:
Literature Resource Center
TIPS: Select
That will bring you to this search screen:
Put keywords from the title of the work in the top box and change Any words to All words. Then put the author's last name in the second box. It is POSSIBLE to get nothing here, if there isn't anything focusing on that particular play. But check for typos. This database contains only a tiny portion of what is available, though. It is also an index to much more in several different series in the Reference Room. Try looking your play up in the master index by clicking on this button in the blue band at the top of the screen:
This will tell you which books in the reference collection contain more on that work.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Everything that comes up here is NOT reviews of performances. You will also get literary criticism and general commentary/opinion magazine articles. To cite what you find here, use the Guide to Citing Secondary Resources ... which you will find on the English Research Guides page.
Ethnic Newswatch
For plays that have a multicultural or ethnic perspective, this is a place you might find a very interesting review. This is a fulltext database that goes back to 1990. It covers both newspapers and magazines from U.S. ethnic communities.
IMPORTANT TIPS: Use the ADVANCED search mode. Click on
and use the pulldown menu for DOCUMENT TYPE to select PERFORMANCE REVIEW. Then, for example, to find reviews of August Wilson's play entitled The Piano Lesson, you would enter this search statement:
august and wilson and piano lesson
on one of the search lines and use the pulldown menu on that line to change CITATION AND DOCUMENT TEXT to CITATION AND ABSTRACT.
Stop in the Information Commons and consult with the Librarian
on duty. You can also email or call
me(554-5438), Gail Gradowski.
Page Created 11 April 2001 Last Updated 11 April 2006
