Secondary Sources - ENGL 30101 — Introduction to Literary Studies - Library Guides at University of Notre Dame

Introduction to Secondary Sources

Secondary sources are research books and articles. For our purposes, it is convenient to divide these sources into criticism and reference materials. Criticism will make arguments about a text or a literary movement or a period of time, drawing evidence from many places. These kinds of sources will be your main partners in the scholarly conversion, worthy of citation in your paper.

Reference sources provide context and factual information to help orient yourself when developing your argument. Encyclopedias and timelines are good examples. While online reference sources such as Wikipedia can be helpful, the materials held by the library will be more reliable since they are vetted by scholars. Be careful what you consult.

The line can blur between critical and reference sources, but in general, you will not be quoting many reference sources in your paper unless the information they give is debatable. It can be confusing to determine whether a factual datum like a date is "general knowledge" which need not be cited or a contestable claim which should be quoted, so please contact your professor or a librarian if there is any question in your mind.

Below, critical resources are listed in the left-hand column, beginning with "Key Critical Sources." Reference works are included in the right-hand column. And of course search the catalog for reference and critical sources in print.

Reference Sources

Johns Hopkins guide to literary theory & criticism This link opens in a new window
A full-text searchable database of articles on individual critics and theorists, critical and theoretical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods.
Literature online the home of English and American literature on the World Wide Web LION This link opens in a new window
LION, or Literature Online, is a large collection of reference works, primary source texts, and criticism
Oxford bibliographies online. British and Irish Literature This link opens in a new window
Offers peer-reviewed annotated bibliographies on British and Irish literature, including perspectives from such fields as history, cultural studies, political science, and philosophy. Bibliographies are browseable by subject area and keyword searchable.
Oxford dictionary of national biography This link opens in a new window
"The classic, authoritative biographical source for British history."
Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new window
Is it also a critical source? The OED is one of those "reference" resources amenable to quotation in papers because its definitions are not simple "facts" about words, but eloquently-argued definitions drawing from vast evidence of historical usage.

Oxford Reference -- Literature
Over 54 sources, such as The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature, that will help you make sense of literature and criticism.

Key Critical Sources

The resources below include some of the largest databases in English literature. They are often the first stop on a research project, but they should not be the last. They are neither comprehensive nor sufficient, and should complement normal catalog searches (as well as searches of more narrowly-focused databases).

MLA international bibliography (EBSCO platform) This link opens in a new window
A critical starting point, the "MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures provides citations of journal articles, books, and dissertations published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics," as well as full-text access in many cases. Coverage, centered on literary humanities topics, is international and goes back to 1926.
Annual bibliography of English language and literature ABELL. This link opens in a new window
ABELL provides an extensive collection of "citations and indexing to articles, books, dissertations, critical editions of literary works, book reviews and collections of essays published worldwide since 1920 pertaining to bibliography and English language and literature." Good resource to use in concert with (and as a check against) the MLA international bibliography. IMPORTANT NOTE: This link will take you to the main page for LION. Click the "Criticism" tab near the top of the screen and select "ABELL" from the drop-down menu to get to the proper search interface.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Large index of journal articles, most with full-text PDFs available. Caution: may not index most recent years. Project Muse tends to cover the newer material that JSTOR misses.
Project Muse : scholarly journals online This link opens in a new window
Like JSTOR, Project Muse indexes a large amount of humanities databases with many full-text options. Tends to include more recent years of journal runs and thus well complements JSTOR's earlier coverage.

Other Critical Sources

Gale Academic OneFile Select This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing, abstracts, and selected full text for 3,500+ scholarly journals and general interest periodicals embracing all academic disciplines (citations only for The New York Times). Search can be limited to book reviews.
Humanities International Index This link opens in a new window
"...provides cover-to-cover indexing and abstracting for over 1,700 journals ... includes deep backfiles for some of the most important journals in the area of humanities. ... includes all data from American Humanities Index plus bibliographic records from a multitude of international journals, books and reference works." -- EBSCOhost database description