LTWR300B: History & Practice of Literary Commentary II

To search for books, you need to use our Library Catalog. Depending on how much time you have, you have options.

Option 1: Books at Cal State San Marcos

Any well researched project uses books to support your thinking and writing. There are two kinds of books you can investigate in the library for literature research--texts and criticism. To find them in our library catalog, either do:

• KEYWORD searches using terms from your class readings and notes,
• TITLE searches for specific works by their exact title,
• AUTHOR searches for those who have been identified as authorities on a topic, or
• SUBJECT searches on your author, another person, or topic. (Subject headings can be tricky, so feel free to ask for help.) Some possible subject searches:
  • Feminist literary criticism
  • Feminism and literature
  • English literature -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc (this heading refers to British authors, not English language)
  • American literature -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc (study of a genre or other aspect as a group, rather than a specific work)
  • Morrison, Toni (Note last name, first name order when searching a person)
  • Morrison, Toni. Beloved (examination of a particular work)
  • Morrison, Toni - Criticism and interpretation (analysis of this particular author's body of work)

Additional material you should investigate is scholarly discussion of the moral, religious, political and historical elements of the author's time. As no one lives in a vacuum, what was occuring at the time will have bearing on what the author writes about and how it is said. Sample searches which are not literary-oriented but useful can include: 

• KEYWORD searches using terms from your class readings and notes, such as genre and time period (Romantic, Gothic...) 
• SUBJECT searches on the time period. (Subject headings can be tricky, so feel free to ask for help.) Some possible subject searches:
  • American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism
  • Black nationalism in literature
  • Communism and literature -- United States -- History -- 20th century
  • Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 20th century

Specialized Books 

These are works like encyclopedias, directories, and collections of reviews. They may be quick overviews or in-depth studies and are frequently useful for short facts or overviews, birthdates, statistics and bibliographies of sources. There are a number of useful resources mentioned in Baker and Huling's Research Guide for Undergraduate Students which is held at CSUSM.

Gale Publishing has a number of useful compilations of literature criticism in a variety of series. Recently, CSUSM stopped the print series subscriptions in order to puchase the database, LITERATURE CRITICISM ONLINE, for one-stop shopping. One problem with the database is that not all content of the earlier volumes of these sets digitized, therefore you may find yourself needing to check the print volumes at times.

Literature Criticism Online

Option 2: Books from Other sources

The same searches will reveal more materials (or additional copies) that you can get from either local or distant libraries. 

CSU+ (3-5 day delivery)
Search the collections of the other 22 CSU libraries. Find and request books directly online; pick them up at our Library in 3-5 days.

WorldCat (5-10 day delivery)
Search the collections of libraries world-wide -- about 52,000,000 books. Find a book in this database, and fill-out an Interlibrary Loan delivery request. Book will be delivered to Library for pickup.

Google Books
Many of the results will not provide full text, but you discover what is available in the world beyond CSUSM, and we can probably borrow it for you.