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Rider University Libraries

CMP-203: Literature and Composition (Harris, Spring 2020)

Databases for Literary Topics

Library One Search
Search for books, articles, media and more! Searches most of the library's resources, including books, scores, audio recordings, videos, journal articles, electronic resources, and more. All of the interdisciplinary and subject databases listed on this page are searched via Library One Search.

Library One Search searches all of our literature databases at once!

Too many hits?

  • Search the AUTHOR  of the work you are researching as the SUBJECT.
  • Use the other limits (date, subject) on the left sidebar.
  • Limit by Source Type (articles, books, ebooks) on the left sidebar.

To find works of criticism on a work of literature, search the AUTHOR as a SUBJECT.

If it is an anonymous work or a collective work (like a television show), search the TITLE as a SUBJECT

  • Hint: Use quotation marks for titles, to search as a phrase: "game of thrones"

Screenshot of search box, demonstrating author as subject, title of work as subject, and topic as keyword, each on a different line and connected by Boolean AND.

This search will find articles that are entirely about both of these topics. Articles that are not entirely about your particular work may be helpful as well.

Optional: "Your topic of interest." Leave this out if you have few or no hits. Look at what has been written about on your author/work to get ideas for terms or a broader approach.

 

The MLA International Bibliography with Full Text is an index to the content of journals, books, conference proceedings, and other resources in the disciplines of languages, literature, linguistics and folklore. It is indexed by experts in the field and has its own specialized vocabulary and structure to help you limit to authors, works, topics, time periods, and more. How to Search the MLA International Bibliography.

When you find a desired citation:

  • If the item is an article in a journal and the full text is available, it will be signified by the presence of a PDF icon, the accompanying text in HTML, or a link to the article in another database. (see Finding the Full Text for more info.)
  • If there is no accompanying full text:
    • Use the Journals link from the Libraries web page to double check if the Rider Universities Libraries owns or has electronic access to  the journal in your citation. (The MLA is not a full-text database itself.)
    • Request the article thorough Interlibrary Loan. We will get it for you from another library!
    • It could be a book or a book chapter. See below.
  • If the citation is a chapter of a book, search the title of the book in the library catalog.
    • If we don't have the book, we can also get the chapter or the whole book through Interlibrary Loan.

For best results, refine your search using the advanced search tab.  Search smart! The same strategy applies for searching in the MLA as it does in Library One Search. Click on the down arrows (drop-down box) for even more specific literature searching options in MLA.

 

Both of these are searchable simultaneously using Library One Search.

Search Project MUSE®

 

 

Project MUSE is "a leading provider of digital humanities and social science content for the scholarly community," covering the fields of literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, economics, and many others.
 
Project MUSE includes the full content of each journal and ebooks from university presses and other scholarly publishers.
 

As of January 2012, Project Muse also indexes ebooks, but Rider University Libraries may not have access to these titles as ebooks.

  • Use Advanced Search and limit to “Language and Literature” and/or “Linguistics” under “Discipline(s) and/or Title(s)”. 
  • See “Searching JSTOR” under “Help” or click the "Search Help" link in the Advanced Search tab to learn the operators to make your keyword searching more effective.

 

Use Find Journals if a recent or current issue is not full-text in JSTOR to see whether we have access to it in print or another database.

Depending on your topic, these databases might be helpful, too!