ENGL 1100: Literary Interpretation Class Guide

Overview

The library has many resources that can help with your assignments for this and other classes. For a more complete list of resources, see the English Language and Literature subject guide. Ask a Librarian can answer quick questions by email. You can stop by or call the Central Reference desk at 387-5178.

Finding Books

Use WMU’s Library Catalog, WestCat, to locate books, videos, films, sound recordings, slides and journals owned by WMU Libraries.

To search for books about authors and their works use the Basic Search, searching for the author as a subject heading (last name first), otherwise use Advanced Search to find books on your topic.

If WMU Libraries do not have the book, you can borrow it from another library through Interlibrary Loan, though you must register first. Or borrow from a Michigan library through MeLCat.

Biographical Information

Literature Resource Center Full-text biographies, critical essays and reviews, poems, short stories and plays of more than 130,000 international authors. This database contains the full content of the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Contemporary Authors, and selections from Children's Literature Review, Drama Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism and 11 other literary criticism series.

Dictionary of Literary Biography
PS221.D5 (Ref) 1978-present
Now available online, the print consists of hundreds of volumes, each covering a distinct literary period, genre, or theme, with extensive essays, frequently illustrated with images of the author and his/her works, which link biography with interpretations of the literary work. Included are literary authors, journalists, historians, screenwriters, scholars, critics, and publishers. Though international is scope, emphasis is on those authors writing in English. Some authors appear in more than one volume. Use the online index or the index in the latest published volume to find all the previous volumes.

Contemporary Authors Z 1224 .c6 (Ref)
Part of the Literature Resource Center, this directory provides brief biographical information about more than 120,000 authors from the US and elsewhere. Includes writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, journalism, and many other fields.

Literary Criticism

Literature Resource Center Full-text biographies, critical essays and reviews, poems, short stories and plays of more than 130,000 international authors. This database contains the full content of the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Contemporary Authors, and selections from Children's Literature Review, Drama Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism and 11 other literary criticism series.

MLA International Bibliography (Modern Language Association) Z 7006 .M64 (Ref. Index Shelves) (1921-present)
Indexes periodicals and series, monographs, book collections, dissertation abstracts, Festschriften (books written to honor a particular scholar), and other sources. Areas covered include modern languages and literature, folklore, linguistics, literary themes, genres, and related topics across national literatures and other classified boundaries. Covers from 1963 to the present. Updated 9 times per year.

Literature Online (LION) A searchable full-text database of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, literary criticism from over 200 literature journals and various reference resources. Includes biographies, bibliographies, and links to Web sites.

Literature Criticism Online This database represents a range of modern and historical views on authors and their works across regions, eras and genres including:
Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Drama Criticism, Poetry Criticism and Children's Literature Review.

Arts & Humanities Citation Index (Web of Science) The Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a multidisciplinary database that indexes 1,144 of the world's leading arts and humanities journals, and selected, relevant items from over 6,800 major science and social science journals. Coverage is from 1975 to the present.

Citing Sources

MLA Style Guide This is a brief guide to MLA (Modern Languages Association) citation format, based on the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. This is the most frequently used style used in the humanities, especially when in writing about literature.

RefWorks
This citation management software allows you to import citations directly from electronic indexes and create and manage your own bibliographies. Use with word processing software to cite and format references easily in a variety of writing styles. You will have to set up an individualized account the first time you use RefWorks. An excellent tutorial is available in RefWorks under Help. Tutorial

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Ask A Librarian

Maira Bundza, E-mail: maira.bundza@wmich.edu
Phone: 269-387-5207
Last updated: March 2008