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Learn how to find reference books in the library catalog.
- African American Writers Ref. PS153 .N5 A344 2001
- Asian American Poets: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook Ref. PS153 .A84 A826 2002
- Asian American Short Story Writers Ref. PS153 .A84 A828 2003
- Beat Generation: A Gale Critical Companion Ref. PS228 .B6 C66 2003
- Companion to the Regional Literatures of America Ref. PS169 .R45 C66 2003
- Contemporary Literary Criticism Ref. PN 771.C59
- Critical Survey of Poetry Ref. PN1021 .C7
- Dictionary of Literary Biography Ref. PN 451.D 537
- Guide to American Drama Explication Ref. Z1231.D7 O84 1995
- Harlem Renaissance Ref. PS153 .N5 H245 2003
- Latin American Writers Ref. PQ7081.A1L37 1989
- Literature and Its Times Ref. PN 50.L 574 1997
- Shakespearean Criticism Ref. PR 2965.S43 1984
- Short Story Criticism Ref. PN3373 .S56
- Twentieth Century British Literature Ref. PR 473.T84 1985
To find books on a given subject, search GIL, the online library catalog.
Perform a Keyword Search when you want to match your term with the same term in a certain field of the database, such as Author, Title, Subject, or Series. You can also attempt to match your term as a Keyword (Title/Subject), which will cause the GIL search engine to look in the Title and Subject fields of the record, or you can try to match your term anywhere in the record by selecting Keyword Anywhere.
Use the Exact Search option if you know the exact term you want to match, such as title, author name, or subject. Also, if you know the beginning part of the term, such as the first word of a title or the first few letters of an author's name, you can use the Exact Search option to find the full form of your term. If you are have trouble finding the material you need using a certain subject term, you can also use Exact Search to find what is called a valid Library of Congress Subject Heading, as well as subheadings for that subject term. For instance, if you attempt to find literary criticism using "Literary Criticism" as a subject term, you will find the the valid Library of Congress Subject Heading for "Literary Criticism" is simply "Criticism".
There are many variations and combinations in Library of Congress Subject Headings (and subheadings) for Literature. For works on the principles of Literary Criticism, enter:
- Criticism
- English poetry History and criticism
- American poetry African American authors History and criticism
Criticism of a particular work may appear under the author’s name:
- Williams, Tennessee, 1911-1983 Glass Menagerie Criticism and interpretation
Search Tips
Subject encyclopedias, critical editions, anthologies, and books of collected essays are all good sources for literary criticism.
When doing a subject search, be sure to scroll down the screen. Library of Congress Subject Headings start out very broad and get more and more detailed. If you enter a very general subject heading such as “American Literature”, you may have to look at several pages of listings to see all applicable entries.
Individual short stories, poems, or plays are best researched by using the author’s name as a subject search to find individual books such as:
- Flannery O’Connor: A study of the short fiction
Or, by using an index to the genre such as:
- Twentieth century Short Story Explication
In addition to the materials located in the library, GGC provides you with access to some 26,000 full-text electronic books through netLibrary. You can access netLibrary through GALILEO, through GIL, or visit http://netlibrary.com/.
Note: You need to set up a netLibrary account before you can use netLibrary books. However, it is free and only involves filling out a simple form. See our Ebook/netLibrary guide or ask a librarian for more information. netLibrary uses Library of Congress Subject Headings as well, so try the examples given above.
The Georgia Gwinnett College Library collects series of books in many subject areas, both in print and in netLibrary.
Learn how to find books by series title in the library catalog.
Use GALILEO databases to find articles. The following databases are a good place to start your search.
If you would like to find out if a particular journal is available electronically, use GALILEO's Journals A-Z. Georgia Gwinnett College Library does not subscribe to all of the databases that UGA subscribes to. Therefore, if you are not a UGA student, you may not have access to some of the databases that are presented in the results of a search in the EJL.
Literature Resource Center (full-text)
Provides biographies on over 120,000 authors, literary criticism, historical context, and social implications of literature. It includes nearly 300,000 fulltext articles, including reprints from many Gale reference works on literature and numerous other publications.
Literature Online Reference Edition (full-text)
A collection of literary reference and criticism resources, including biographies, author bibliographies, Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (ABELL), essays from New Essays on the American Novel, and full-text articles from 103 literature journals.- JSTOR (full-text) JSTOR provides electronic access to back issues of core journal titles in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
- Project Muse (full-text)
Project Muse provides online access to the full-text of over 100 scholarly journals in the arts, humanities, social sciences, and mathematics. - MLA International Bibliography (linked full-text)
An index of literature, languages, linguistics, literary theory and criticism, dramatic arts, and folklore from over 4,400 journals and serials, as well as books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies. Approximately 45,000 records are added annually. Classical Greek and Latin literature are not covered. - Academic Search Premier (full-text) provides abstracts and indexing for over 3,800 publications, as well as full text for over 3,200 scholarly journals and general magazines. Coverage: 1984 – present.
- Research Library (full-text) is a multidisciplinary database that covers more than 1,600 publications. Coverage: 1986-present (citations and abstracts); 1991-present (full text for selected publications).
- Humanities Full Text (full-text)
Full text articles in the Humanities from Wilson OmniFile. - Twentieth Century North American Drama (full-text)
The complete works of major and lesser-known North American playwrights, plus unpublished plays, production information, playbills, and theatre details. - Original Sources (full-text)
A comprehensive compilation of more than 350,000 primary source documents, complete books, and authentic images. - Black Drama (full-text)
Text of 1,200 plays (almost a quarter of which previously unpublished), written by more than 300 playwrights from North America, Africa, the Caribbean, Europe, Australia, and other locations. - African-American Poetry: 1760-1900 (full-text)
Provides access to the full text of the works of nearly 3,000 poems by 54 African-American poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. - Asian American Drama (full-text)
Text of 250 plays written by Asian Americans, from the 18th century to the present. - Latino Literature: Poetry, Drama and Fiction (full-text)
More than 200 novels, many hundreds of short stories, 20,000 pages of poetry, and more than 400 plays (mostly in English), written by Latin Americans. - American Poetry 1: 1600-1900 (full-text)
Provides access to the full text of over 40,000 poems by more than 200 poets, covering the Colonial period to the early twentieth century, and drawn from over 1,200 printed sources. - American Poetry 2: 1901-1997 (full-text)
This database contains modern and contemporary American poetry from the early twentieth century to the present. It includes 12,000 poems drawn from over 130 volumes by over 100 poets, including Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Denise Levertov, Wallace Stevens, Langston Hughes, and Cathy Song. - English Poetry: 600-1900 (full-text)
This database provides access to the full text of the works of more than 1,250 poets from 600 to 1900. The database contains over 165,000 poems drawn from 4,500 printed sources, creating, in essence, a database of the complete English poetic canon from Anglo-Saxon times to the end of the nineteenth century - North American Women's Drama (full-text)
Text of 1,500 plays by women from the United States and Canada. - North American Theatre Online (full-text)
Bibliographic information on more than 10,000 plays – including unpublished works. It will contain thousands of facts about theaters, authors, theatrical companies, and individuals, as well as some 1,000 playbills, posters, photographs, and related theatrical ephemera. - netLibrary (full-text electronic books)
netLibrary provides access to over 15,000 electronic books (eBooks), including reference books, scholarly monographs, publications of many university presses, and consumer books that have been converted into digital format. It is possible to perform full-text searches of a single eBook, search thousands of volumes simultaneously, browse topic categories, or read eBooks directly online. Titles may be checked out for on-screen viewing for four hours. NOTE: Each individual user must create a personal user name and password.
Print Journals and Magazines Located at the GGC Library
Learn how to find print periodicals in the library catalog.
- American Journal of Philology
- American Literature
- American Poetry Review
- Baffler
- Classical Journal
- Classical Philology – microfilm
- Classical Quarterly - print and microfilm
- College English
- Comparative Literature
- Contemporary Literature
- Daedalus
- Early American Literature
- English Journal
- English Language Notes
- Essays in Criticism
- Explicator
- Georgia Review
- Greece and Rome
- Journal of English and Germanic Philology
- Journal of Modern Literature
- Literature Film Quarterly
- Literature and History
- Modern Drama - print and microfilm
- Modern Fiction Studies - print and microfilm
- Modern Language Journal
- Nathaniel Hawthorne Review
- Nineteenth-Century Literature - print and microfilm
- Parabola
- PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America
- Poetry
- Shakespeare Quarterly
- Southern Humanities Review
- Southern Literary Journal
- Studies in American Fiction
- Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
- Studies in Short Fiction
- TDR: The Drama Review
- Texas Studies in Literature and Language
- Twentieth Century Literature
- Walt Whitman Quarterly Review
For more information, see Find Articles.
Use caution when selecting web sites to use for research purposes. Search engines such as Google can provide access to web sites relevant to your research, but it is necessary to investigate the authoritativeness of your search results.
Pay attention to certain details:
- Who created the site?
- Are their credentials made available?
- When was the site last updated?
- What is the purpose of the site?
- Is the site trying to sell you something or convince you of something?
For a web site containing high quality, carefully reviewed articles on every imaginable subject, please have a look at SKS Web Select.
UGA Libraries Research Central is a hierarchical guide to subject matter available electronically from UGA.
Associations
- Modern Language Association Founded in 1883, the Modern Language Association provides opportunities for its members to share their scholarly findings and teaching experiences with colleagues and to discuss trends in the academy. For over a hundred years, members have worked to strengthen the study and teaching of language and literature.
- Modern Humanities Research Association The MHRA's purpose is to encourage and promote advanced study and research in the field of the modern humanities.
- Academy of American Poets Founded in 1934 to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry.
Authors and Works
Using a search engine such as Google, you can also find scholarly websites devoted to specific authors or genres, for example:
Be sure to visit our Guide to Evaluating Web Sites before choosing a website as a source for research!
If you are having trouble locating the information that you need please seek assistance from a Reference Librarian. The Reference staff may be contacted in person at the Reference Desk, via phone at (678) 407-5064 or via e-mail using the following link:
Ask a Librarian
