English and American Literature Research at Northeastern University Libraries  Tags: american_literature english_literature  

Welcome to the English and American Literature research guide at Northeastern University Libraries.

This guide outlines some of the basic steps in literary research, and links to the main resources available at Northeastern. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you need more help.

If you're beginning your research, try starting with the following steps. (Please note: this is only a brief outline. Explore this guide, contact me, or contact your professor for more information on conducting in-depth research.)

1. Literature Resource Center, a basic Reference source - critical overviews and selected criticism on a particular author, giving a grounding in who the author is and what they were known for. Additional resources for overview info, good for when just starting out, are on the Literary Reference Shelf.
2. MLA Bibliography, one of the major collections of scholarly article citations for literature - more specialized journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings for in-depth treatments of your author or work.
3. Academic Search Premier, a large, interdisciplinary collection of journal articles - additional in-depth, scholarly treatments of specific works or themes in that author's output.
4. LiOn (Literature Online), a collection of primary sources and criticism - online copies of the authors work, plus more criticism.
5. NUCAT, the library book catalog - print copies of the authors work or book-length critical analysis of that author. Yes, these books are in print and yes, you will have to come to the library.