English 495: Modern American Fiction
Bibliographies and General Guides to Research
Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature.
1939- .
Ref. Z2011 .M69
Literary Research Guide: An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies. James L. Harner.
Ref. Z2011 .H34 2002
A Research Guide for Undergraduate Students: English and American Literature. Nancy L. Baker.
Ref. PR56 .B34 2000
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Introductory and Background Information
African American Authors, 1745-1945: Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook. Emmanuel S. Nelson, ed.
Ref. PS153.N5 A32 2000
African-American Writers: A Dictionary. Shari Dorantes Hatch and Michael R. Strickland, eds.
Ref. PS153.N5 A3444 2000
Afro-American Writers before the Harlem Renaissance. Trudier Harris, ed.
Ref. PS221 q.D5 v.50
Afro-American Writers from the Harlem Renaissance to 1940. Trudier Harris, ed.
Ref. PS221 q.D5 v.51
American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the Present. 5 vols. Lina Mainiero, ed.
Ref. PS147 .A4
American Writers; A Collection of Literary Biographies. 8 vols. Leonard Unger, ed.
Ref. PS129 .A55
Benét's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. George Perkins, Barbara Perkins, and Phillip Leininger, eds.
Ref. PS21 .R4 1991
The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature. Clare Buck, ed.
Ref. PN471 .B57 1992
The Chronology of American Literature: America's Literary Achievements from the Colonial Era to Modern Times. Daniel S. Burt, ed.
Ref. PS94 q.C48 2004
Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms.
Irene R. Makaryk, general editor and compiler.
Ref. PN81 .E63 1993
The Harper Handbook to Literature. Northrop Frye, Sheridan
Baker, George Perkins; with a chronology of literature and world events by
Barbara M. Perkins.
Ref. PN41 .F75 1985
The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism. Michael
Groden and Martin Kreiswirth, eds.
Ref. PN81 .J554 2005
Oxford companion volumes:
- The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. James D. Hart. Ref. PS153.N5 O96 1997 and online from NetLibrary
- The Oxford Companion to American Literature. William Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Smith, eds. PS21 .H3 1995
- The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States. Cathy N. Davidson et al, eds. Ref. PS147 .O94 1995
Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. 1978- .
Ref. PN94 .T83
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Biographical Information
American National Biography. 24 vols.
The standard reference for biographical information on people in American history.
Ref. CT213 .A68 1999
Biography and Genealogy Master Index.
"A comprehensive index to nearly 12 million biographical sketches in more than 2700 volumes and editions of current and retrospective reference books, covering both contemporary and historical figures throughout the world." Available electronically for Lawrence campus researchers.
Literature Resource Center
Use the Author search or the Advanced search. The title search doesn't always find everything you might want to see. In addition to biographical information, includes material from Contemporary Authors, the Dictionary of Literary Biography series, Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, and more.
To find biographical books about a certain person, search in LUCIA for the person using the Subject begins with option. Browse through the subject headings to find the subheading which corresponds to your specific interests. Again, be alert when searching non-western names or names of rulers, as you may need to use varying forms of these names. Many times, LUCIA has cross-references for these.
For autobiographical books by and about a certain person, search in LUCIA for persons as Author. Be sure to consult the library's guide on Biographical Information for further ideas and information.
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Historical Context
The American Years. 2 vols.
Ref. E174.5 q.G753 2003
Dictionary of American History. 10 vols.
Ref. E174 .D52 2003
Encyclopedia of American Social History. 3 vols. Mary Kupiec Cayton, Elliot J. Goru, and Peter W. Williams, eds.
Ref. HN57 .E58 1993
The Oxford Companion to United States History. Paul S. Boyer et al, eds.
Ref. E174 .O94 2001
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Finding Books
To find items owned by the library, search LUCIA. Try a Subject begins with search, for example, american literature--20th century or american fiction--20th century or modernism. LUCIA will suggest related terms which can also be searched. You may want to consult the Library of Congress Subject Headings, or LCSH, a guide to the terms commonly used in catalogs like ours. The LCSH is a red multi-volume set; it can be found on top of the Ready Reference shelves behind the reference desk on the first floor of the library.
To combine terms for a different kind of search, try a Keyword Anywhere search. LUCIA will look for the terms you specify anywhere in the important areas of the cataloging records, and display a list of those records. You can search for phrases like "harlem renaissance" by using quotation marks around the phrase. You might want to try searching for some of the terms you find in the LCSH, or use the Subject Keyword search to target your keyword search to terms in the subject area of the records. Compare a Keyword Anywhere search for america* and modernis* with a Subject Keyword search for america* and modernis*. The asterisk acts as a truncation symbol and tells LUCIA to search for all records containing words starting with america (like America, American, Americans) and all the records containing words starting with modernis; modernist, modernism, and so on; the connecting operator and then tells LUCIA to display all the records containing all the variations of both terms.
Books are arranged on the library's shelves by Library of Congress Classification. This is a system which organizes materials by general subjects. Once you have a call number from searching LUCIA, see this guide to call number locations at Mudd and the library floor maps to find out where a book might be on the shelves.
Search LUCIA for materials in our library; try WorldCat to find materials beyond the Mudd. Make sure you've thoroughly searched our library before going to WorldCat. See a reference librarian if you need help.
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Finding Articles
The best index to use will depend on your topic. Be sure to check the Electronic Resources page for other options. Two of our resources, JSTOR and Project MUSE provide complete full text. In addition to the titles listed here, see also the list of databases for Humanities available from the library. Some of our indexes include:
EBSCOhost.
Follow the link for EBSCOhost Web. EBSCOhost provides a single Web source for multiple databases; you might want to select the Academic Search Elite. Contains broad and specialized coverage of academic and general periodicals.
Expanded Academic ASAP.
Broad coverage of academic periodicals. Includes full text of some articles.
Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life.
The essential indexes to the scholarly literature of history, in books and proceedings as well as journals. Include short summaries of the works indexed. The two indexes are not mutually
exclusive--some material is indexed in both, and both should be consulted when
you're searching on historical topics of international scope.
MLA International Bibliography. 1963-
A leading source for the field of literary studies. Wide ranging index to just about anything of a scholarly nature related to literature and language.
Arts and Humanities Citation Index
A source for tracking citations to and from important critical works in the arts and humanities.
Once you have a citation for an article on your topic, try Citation Linker first to see if that particular article is available. If you don't find it, look in LUCIA for the title of the journal or newspaper to see if the library owns it. You should also search BESS, an automated search of the library's full text databases, for electronic copies of articles.
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Web Resources
Internet Resources for English
Selected by the librarians here at Lawrence.
Internet Resources for Gender Studies
Another list of sources selected by the librarians.
Voice of the Shuttle
One of the leading web pages for research in the humanities.
Of course, there are many more web resources available that might be useful in your research. You might want to try looking at sources that select the best of the Web, like these:
It's important to think carefully about any information you find in any format, and to evaluate resources for their accuracy, applicability, and so forth. Evaluation of web resources is especially important. You may want to consult this guide to Evaluating Internet Resources, or this bibliography on Evaluation of Information Sources. You can often learn a lot about a page (and a site) by parsing the URL.Top
Style Manuals
Academic Citation and Writing
Style manuals of the humanities, physical sciences, and the social sciences in the Seeley G. Mudd Library.
Citing Electronic Documents
This page provides guidance on citing electronic documents and links to
other guides, some on specific styles of documentation.
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
The guide for any academic papers written in the literatures and languages.
RRef. LB2369 .G53 2003
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About Research in Modern American Fiction
While you will find material on your topic in resources for gender studies and literary studies, you may also want to consider searching for material from other fields, like art, art history, history, history of philosophy, and more. In addition to consulting catalogs and indexes, be sure to look at bibliographies supplied at the end of relevant articles, chapters, and books, and to search library catalogs for book-length bibliographies.
Remember that in any written work you produce your sources must be fully documented. It may help to look at the information on style before you start your research, so that you will have all the details required for documentation at hand when you need them. Then as you write, go back to the resources on style for details on the exact format of your citations.
The sources listed in this guide were chosen for the broad coverage they provide. Direct links are provided to Internet resources and searchable databases, as well as links to LUCIA, the library's online catalog. Be sure to check the library's Electronic Resources page regularly to see new databases and indexes; some of these will only be available to users on the Lawrence campus. Also, you may want to take a look at guides on related topics from the Library Research Guides page.
Evaluating the resources you find is an essential part of the research process. See this guide to hints on evaluation of books and articles and this guide to evaluating Internet resources.
As always, if you have any questions be sure to ask a Reference Librarian.
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Definitions of terms and abbreviations:
Ref. = Reference collection, first floor
RRef.= Ready Reference, shelved behind the reference desk
Periodicals = Level A
GovDoc = U.S. Government Documents, second floor
Reference Indexes = Alphabetically arranged at the end of the reference collection
Microform Area = Reading room east of the reference desk, near microform drawers
q. = Oversized books: interfiled in reference and M class scores; at end of classes in other collections
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