Upland, Indiana
Zondervan Library

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English Literature
and Writing

The following resources have been compiled by the librarians with specific regard to the study of English literature and writing.

Reference Books

  • The Oxford companion to English literature. 2006. Ref 820.9 Ox22
    Highlights authors, literary movements and terms, critical theories, genres, publishers, characters and plot summaries. Also includes a chronology of English literature from 1000 to 2005.
  • The Oxford encyclopedia of American literature. 2004. 4 volumes. Ref 810.3 Ox22
    Provides essays on novelists, poets, short-story writers, playwrights and essayists, as well as thematic entries on literary movements and genres.
  • Literature and its times. Supplement 1: Profiles of notable literary works and the historical events that influenced them. 2003. 2 volumes. Ref 809.93358 M85l
    Contains introduction to works, plot synopses and character lists, how each relates to its author's life, other contemporary works, and the historical time period in which it was written.
  • Literary research guide: An annotated listing of reference sources in English literary studies. 2002. Ref 820.9 H22l
    An essential bibliography for anyone serious about research in English and American literature. It highlights every type of research material and gives annotations as to specific resource's usefulness to study.
  • Modern literary theory: A reader. 2001. Main Collection 801.95 M72R 2001
    Includes all major critical theories as they relate to literature, in essays and documents, as well as some excerpts from major works from Freud, Marx, de Beauvoir and others that have had direct influence on literary theory.
  • The new Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics. 1993. Ref 808.1 N42P
    A standard reference work for the theory of and world surrounding poetry, this new edition expands the original content to include emergent and non-Western poetries and movements in literary critcism. Further reading sections and "see also" references are helpful, although there is no index.
  • American writers: A collection of literary biographies. 20 volumes. Ref 920 Am35
    Contains biographies of famous American authors, including their works up to the date of publication. Best for authors prior to the nineties, as the last supplement was published in 1998.
  • Dictionary of literary biography. 20+ volumes. Ref 921 D56L
    One of the best known and most well-respected collections of literary reference works, the Dictionary of Literary Biography has been around for years, and is worth a trip to the Reference collection.
  • Contemporary poets. 1980. Ref 921 C767
    Third edition of this important work which gathers biographical information on influential poets up through the late Twenty-first century.

Finding Books:

  • Online Catalog
    • Find books, as well as a variety of other materials in the TU Libraries.
    • Use the Advanced search option to specify material format, campus, language, and date range.
  • WorldCat
    • Listed under Essential Tools.
    • Find books, among other things, to request via Interlibrary Loan (ILL).

Finding Articles:

  • MLA International Bibliography
    Indexes over 4,000 scholarly journals and series in the fields of literature, language, linguistics, and folklore. Includes citations, but no abstracts.
  • JSTOR
    Provides keyword searching for over 100 important scholarly journals in a variety of disciplines. Particularly strong in Arts & Humanities. Has access to back issues of the journals up through about 3 to 5 years ago.
  • HLAS Online
    A multidisciplinary bibliography covering key resources in the humanities and social sciences of Latin America, HLAS is compiled and annotated by scholars from around the world.
  • ClasePeriodica
    Indexes over 300,000 citations from scholarly journals in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese published in Latin America. Covers the humanities and social sciences, as well as science and technology.
  • Biography Resource Center
    Compiles biographies, along with short articles, for over 320,000 people from all disciplines and around the world. Provides full text to many of the biographies.
  • Arts and Humanities Citation Index
    Includes citations to prominent journals in the disciplines of the Arts and the Humanities, as well as related articles in the sciences and social sciences.
  • Humanities International Index
    Indexes citations from over 700 literary, scholarly, and creative journals published in the United States and Canada.

Periodicals

  • Taylor Periodical Title List
    Search by journal title keyword for online full-text journals, and to see what we have in print in the library.
  • Click here for a Language and Literature Subject Search in the Periodical List to find out what journals (and how many) we have available both in print and online. Click on the blue links to enter the actual list of titles. The numbers in parentheses beside the subject indicate how many journal titles are included in that subject area. It offers subdisciplines, so browse through to find more specific journals for your topic.

Research Tools

  • RefWorks
    A citation management program that allows you to collect and organize citations, create bibliographies and works cited pages, and format papers and bibliographies to a specific citation style.
  • CREDO Reference (formerly xreferplus)
    A conglomeration of specialized dictionaries and encyclopedias that allows you to search for definitions and encyclopedia articles, as well as develop ideas for expanding or refining a research strategy.

Internet Resources

For more Web resources on the topic of English and Literature, please visit our English and Literature web sites page.

  • Jack Lynch's Literary Resources on the Net
    Maintained by Rutger's Jack Lynch, this compiles excellent web sources focusing on English and American literature.
  • Voice of the Shuttle: English Literature
    Voice of the Shuttle stands as one of the most useful portals, searchable by subject, this section focuses on scholarly English literature sites.
  • Web Gateways and Search Engines: UC-Berkeley
    Compendium of web search tools and gateways on the Net, UCB indexes both general literature and subject specific tools, i.e., Chaucer Metapage.
  • MIT Literature Resources
    Impressive collection of web literature resources categorized by period and genre.
  • English: Web Resources (Western Michigan University)
    Some unique poetry sites included on this list that don't appear on others.
  • Intute
    Browsable by resource type, time period, heading or peruse a list of general resources for the study of English. Compiled by subject specialists in the UK, the intended audience is "lecturers, researchers and students within UK higher and further education," yet American students can find extremely useful free web resources here, as well.
  • The Making of America (MoA)
    Provides full-text searching for primary sources (over 10,000 digital books and 2,000 journals) in American history, highlighting these subjects: education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.

Citation Help

  • MLA handbook for writers of research papers. 2003. Ref 808.027 G35M
    The standard source for citation style in literature and writing, published by the Modern Language Association.
  • WorldCat.org
    "Cite this item" within individual item record lists the citation in APA, MLA, Chicago and more.
  • Also, contact the Writing Center at writingctr@taylor.edu or visit them on the Portal at http://my.taylor.edu/academic/writingcenter

Product descriptions on this page incorporated from book reviews and product descriptions from various sources.

Ask-A-Librarian for more information

Created by Lana Gottschalk, Reference Librarian