GEW 101--Paulson--Fall 2009

You need:

You need sources to support your arguments, and several must be scholarly.

• This webpage is to help you locate appropriate quality sources to bring other voices into your writing. First, you need to be able to identify a scholarly source. 

• Such sources can be analytical or critical and are likely to not be 'labeled.'
• They must include a bibliography, or they are opinion pieces which do not count as scholarly research resources.
• Look for the author(s)' authority, why are they writing this work?
• Who is the audience? If the writing is newspaper-level, it is not scholarly.
• The source will NOT be a book review, although the review may lead you to a worthwhile book.

The following tabs address sources for each of the research options.

The authors you are reading have all produced a number of works over a span of time. That means that you will not only find critical analyses of individual works but that there are entire books written critically analyzing an author's works as to themes and intent. Our databases will bring back a great deal as well, and are frequently focused on narrower aspects of an author in comparison to the broader coverage found in books.

Literature Criticism Tools

In the author tabs, you will notice reference to various reference sets (Contemporary Literary Criticism, Short Story Criticism, etc.). These series are published by GALE Publishing and are generally collections of previously-published literary criticism, either on specific authors and their works, either individual titles or a body of work.

As our library catalog cannot direct you to any individual author contained within these sets (there are thousands of authors in a large variety of sets), you will want to use the GALE LITERARY INDEX (free online index) to locate the particular set and volume you need.