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Literary Research Strategy

Background

There are a multitude of resources and strategies for conducting literary research in the twenty-first century. In addition to outlining new and classic research tactics, this guide will provide links to literary resources with a broad scope. For links to resources designed for smaller fields of study, consult the following guides:

Basic Reference

These reference resources are grouped here based on their encyclopedic quality -- they give decent factual summaries and are useful for familiarizing oneself with literary subjects, like a more reliable Wikipedia. For the most part, they are not suitable for use as quotable scholarly sources.

Reference Plus

These reference sources tend to provide more advanced information, and may in some cases (for example, in the Oxford entries) offer quotable material.

Primary Source Databases