Welcome to the Library Research Guide for the Department of English. Here you will find resources to support students as they navigate general courses in the English Department. This includes basic information on library services and collections, as well as information on citations and plagiarism. There are also additional research guides specifically for Composition I (ENGL 1013) or Composition II (ENGL 1023).
The library has a variety of textbooks or required course material available either online or at the main circulation desk. You can search by course or by instructor at our Course Reserves List. Here's a selection of some course reserves below:
Primary and critical text database for literary research at all levels. Provides full text access to more than 500,000 works of poetry, drama and prose stretching from the 8th century through the present day, including primary resource collections from diverse and modern authors.
Literature database which includes biographical information about authors as well as literary criticism on author's works.
This resource covers publications on literature and language for researchers of all levels. Subjects: English, American literature, world literatures, and linguistics.
Multidisciplinary digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources.
Literature content from all time periods, and specializes in poems and poem excerpts.
Information on the meaning and history of words.
These keywords, topics, and SUBJECTS will help you find and interpret database results
Literary Criticism - A term used to describe the category of resources which analyzes literary texts to derive meaning and connect with broader themes and theories. Articles in this category will often examine an individual work, compare works by the same author, or compare works of different authors.
Biography - Information about the author's life and body of work.
Textual Analysis or Textual Criticism - The study of a literary work for the purpose of establishing the original form or a single definitive form of its text.
Reference Sources - These are short articles or summaries designed to provide background information like definitions, chronology of events, important biographic details, and broad overviews of a topic. Examples include Encyclopedias and Dictionaries.
Reviews - These include articles whose purpose is to evaluate a work's quality, often for the purpose of purchasing or reading a book.