If you are enrolled in English class, you are in for an adventure in the fascinating realm of English and American literature! To be successful in this class you will need to locate and use primary sources (works of fiction), secondary sources (literary criticism, authors’ biographies); and to be able to cite your sources correctly. It means becoming familiar with the OIT Library’s printed and electronic resources and services.

This pathfinder was created to lead you through the stages of your research, and to introduce some useful resources in English and American literature, offered by the OIT Library, other regional and national libraries, and some sources available through the Internet.

1.   You Are Looking for a Short Story Collection, a Movie, or a Critical Essay

Searching Online Catalogs                         

Has your instructor asked you to find a specific short story collection, a movie, or a critical essay? Search the Library online catalog available on the OIT Library home page under Find a Book - OIT Library Catalog.

OIT Library catalog contains records of books, periodicals (but not articles), videos and other materials owned by the OIT Library. 

The catalog offers several search options: search by Author, by Title, by Subject, or by Keyword. Choose the appropriate option, depending on what you already know.

- You know the author’s name.

Choose the option of searching by author.

Example: james, henry

(search engine is not case-sensitive; the last name comes first; add the first name for a more precise search).

- You know the title of a book, a journal, or a movie.

Choose the option of searching by title.

Example: best american short stories

(allows dropping the initial article if it is present).

If you are looking for a particular poem, the title search may not retrieve it; choose a keyword search instead. This type of searching is explained later in the guide.

Another way to find a poem is to use an index mentioned later in this guide:

The Columbia Granger’s Index to Poetry in Anthologies.
Call number:  REF PN 1022.H39 1997.

You can find the index in the reference section of the Library. A reference librarian will show you how to use it. The Library also subscribes to the online version of the index (see it in the list of databases below).

- You know the exact subject heading.

Choose the option of searching by subject.

It is not so easy to come up with appropriate subject headings – you should use the exact terms predefined by the Library of Congress. Where can you find them? Look for five “red volumes” in the reference area of the Library. This is the 5-volume edition of the Library of Congress Subject Headings REF Z695.L695 2005.

 Listed below are just a few of the Subject Headings related to English and American literature:

American Essays --                                                American Literature --

English Drama --                                                    English Fiction --

American Poetry --                                                 English Literature --

Subject Headings for more specific types of literature:

Fantasy Literature, English                                      Travelers’ Writings, American

Pastoral Poetry, American                                       Working Class Writings, English

Subject Headings for groups of writers:

Authors, American                                                    Poets, English

Dramatists, English                                                   Women Novelists, American

Novelists, American                                                  Women Novelists, English

Searches by Subject can be further divided to cover time periods and formats:

American literature -- History and criticism  

Authors -- American -- Biography -- Dictionaries

Authors -- English -- 20^th Century

Note: an author can be also searched for as a subject, when you are looking for materials connected with that author (biography, critical essays, bibliography of the author’s works). Add the dates, and one of the following subdivisions to the author’s name:

James, Henry, 1843-1916 -- Criticism and interpretation

James, Henry, 1843-1916 -- Biography

James, Henry, 1843-1916 -- Bibliography

- You don’t know the author’s name, the title, or the exact subject heading.

Choose the option of searching by keywords.

Example: short story and criticism

Got too few results?

To get more results, use Boolean operator “OR”. For this option choose synonyms or the words with the same meaning. This search option broadens your search, retrieving the documents with only one or only the other of your keywords.

Example: autobiography OR memoir

Truncation of search terms can also be used to broaden the search. Truncation symbol used in the library catalog is asterisk (*). Use this method to get all the forms or alternative spellings of the same word, e.g.: critic* will retrieve documents with the words: critic, critical, criticism, etc.

Example:  women novelists and critic*

Got too many results?

Another Boolean operator will help you. Use “AND” to narrow your search down.  The search engine will look only for the documents which contain both of your keywords.

Example: autobiography AND memoir

Another way to narrow down your results is to add a name, a time period, or a country to your initial search terms.

Examples: short stories and james

                  short stories and 20^th century

                  short stories and france

Also take time to explore the limiting options of the library catalog even before you start your search: by language, year of publication, publisher, location at the library (e.g.: Book Stacks or Reference), and material type (useful if you need to differentiate a book “Hamlet” from a movie with the same title).

Of all the searching options mentioned, searching by Subject is the most precise type of search. However, if you are not certain which subject heading(s) to use, start with a keyword search. After getting a list of results, carefully examine the book records that look promising, and click on the suggested subject headings for a more focused search.

Still not sure how to use the library catalog?

Click here to access the library catalog Tutorial. 

The tutorial will help you gain the necessary knowledge and skills to use this important research tool effectively, and become a better searcher!

You found what you were looking for.

Your search in the library catalog has been successful and you retrieved one or several records you find promising.

What to look for in a catalog record?

You already know that a catalog record can provide you with the useful subject headings to give you directions for further search. In addition the catalog record will show you if the book you need is available or checked out, in which section of the library it is located, and the book’s call number - its address on the shelf.

OIT Library uses Library of Congress Classification System to assign call numbers to books. Your book will probably be located among the following call numbers on the shelves:

Click here to see the complete Library of Congress Classification Outline in Class P – Language and Literature.

Click on the class you are interested in to see the subclasses.

Books in Literature section are shelved by century, literary period (Romanticism) or language (Romantic Literature, Germanic Literature), and within alphabetically by author. Works by and about an author are shelved together.

For example, book “Billy Budd and Other Tales” by Herman Melville has the following call number:

PS 2384. B54.

The first two letters of this call number show you that the book should be found in American Literature section of the Book Stacks. When you get there, you will see that “Billy Budd” will be shelved side by side with the other works written by Melville, as well as his biographies and criticism of his works.

You can tell if the books are located in the Reference section of the Library if their call numbers start with “REF.”

Browsing books on the shelves can be another way to locate useful information on your topic!

You didn’t find what you were looking for.

If your search for a particular topic or book in the OIT Library catalog hasn’t brought the desired results, turn to the other two online catalogs. You can find them on the Library’s home page, under Find a Book link, right under the OIT Library Catalog.

Summit is a union online catalog which contains shared collections of more than 30 academic libraries of Oregon and Washington. Use it to search for and order books, videos, or journal articles from the libraries-participants. The catalog allows the same set of search options: by Keyword, Author, Title, and Subject.

In addition to direct link to Summit from the OIT Library’s home page, you will find a Repeat in Summit button inside every OIT Library catalog record.

If you find the book you want in Summit, click on the “Request This Item” button, and fill in the required information.

Access Services staff will notify you by e-mail when your order arrives at the library (usually in 2-3 days).

WorldCat is an online catalog with a world wide range. Use it to get access to over 30 million records of books, series, articles, visual materials, computer files, musical scores, and other types of material.

Due to the distant locations of most of the libraries, your order will take longer to arrive.

Interlibrary Loan

In the course of your research there will be situations when you won’t be able to find a book in any of the catalogs, or an article in any of the databases. There is another way to get a book or an article: request them from another library via the Interlibrary Loan.

Use the Borrow from another library link from the library home page (under Get Help) to get to book and article online request forms. Choose the appropriate one. Fill out all required fields to provide as much information about the book or the article, as you can. This will speed up the process of finding the desired item for you. Don’t forget to fill out your personal information: your name, status, and your e-mail address at OIT. This will allow the Access Services staff to contact you when your book or article arrives at the library.

 2. You Are Writing a Term Paper

a. Background Sources                  

The first step in any research is becoming familiar with the subject, getting an idea of the amount of research already done in this area, finding definitions for terms and concepts - in other words, gathering background information. The best sources to use at this stage of research are reference books. 

Below is a representative list of reference materials in English and American Literature the OIT Library offers. Use them to verify facts, consult an author’s biography, or read critical essays about an author’s creative works.

Find these books in the Reference and the Book Stacks areas of the Library!

Printed Reference Books

b. Next Step

With the help of the background sources the chosen topic started to clarify itself in your mind. Now it is time to examine its interpretation in the current sources. The most current and up-to-date material can be found in journals. There are two sources of online periodicals you can try. They are: databases and electronic journals. Look for the links on the OIT Library’s home page!

OIT Library Databases                     

The OIT Library offers a range of high-quality databases which provide citations and full texts of articles from periodicals. All databases are available from outside of campus via proxy server. If you need to work with the databases from home, follow the steps listed below, and when prompted, type in your OIT e-mail account username and password. For help in getting your e-mail account, use Connecting from off-campus link (under Get Help) from the Library’s home page.

To find all the databases on the subject of English and American Literature the OIT Library subscribes to, go to the Library home page, choose the Find an Article or Journal link, follow it with the Journal databases  by subject link, and select Humanities & Literature from the list of subjects.

Academic Search Premier - a multidisciplinary database with citations and some full text articles from journals, including those in literary studies. It searches for periodicals, books, and primary source documents. Searches can be limited to materials owned by the OIT Library, to full text articles, and to peer-reviewed publications.  It is good for looking up book reviews. Though not a specialized literary database, this resource is a good starting point for most topics.

Arts & Humanities Search features articles from the leading arts and humanities journals. This database offers citations from more than 1300 sources (books and periodicals), and allows limiting results by date, language, and /or by materials owned by the OIT Library.

Literature Resource Center is one of the most comprehensive literary databases. It includes full text biographical, bibliographical, and critical analysis of more than 10,000 authors from every time period and genre; works’ overviews and plot lines; useful websites; and a literary-historical timeline. It allows searching by author, title, keyword, and authors by type (literary movement, genre, gender or ethnicity).

A few tips on searching Literature Resource Center

Search by author is the default search in this database. Type in the last and the first names in the search box.

 Example: golding, william.

If you are looking for critical materials on the novel “Lord of the Flies” by Golding, choose the search by title option, and select one of the three: “any words entered”, “all words entered” or “exact title”. You can narrow your search down by adding the author’s name to the title (it can save you time in case of prolific authors).

Advanced search option offers the user to choose a preferred source of information. It is possible to limit your results to the articles from full-text periodicals. Be sure to distinguish between peer-reviewed (scholarly) publications, and popular editions. One way to do it is to access another OIT Library database: Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory. Search it for the title of the periodical, and look for a special icon which confirms its scholarly nature.

Another way is to ask the reference librarian for help!

Electronic Journals

The OIT Library subscribes to electronic journals in many disciplines, including literature. To browse the titles, click on the Electronic Journals link under Find an Article or Journal on the Library’s home page, choose “Languages and Literatures” category from the drop-down menu, and click on Search.

The next page will show a list of subject headings. The number in parenthesis after each subject heading indicates the amount of journal titles available for this subject. For example, “American Literature” Subject Heading includes 29 titles of electronic journals, and “English Literature” – 44 titles.

Examples of electronic journals in American Literature:

American drama

American literature

American poetry review

Early American literature

Southern literary journal  

Studies in American fiction

Examples of electronic journals in English Literature:

Early modern literary studies

English literary renaissance

Medieval & Renaissance drama in England  

Review of English studies  

Studies in English literature, 1500-1900  

Victorian studies  

Click on the subject heading to see all the journals representing it. To get inside a journal, click on the name of the database next to the title. Further options include browsing the issues or searching within the publication.

However, if you are at the beginning of your research, using databases first would be more efficient.

c. What Is Out There On the Internet?        

In some cases information found on the Internet can be useful, and might be included in a term paper. However, not all information you can find this way is worth your attention: it can be outdated, biased, or outright incorrect.  Whether the material you find is safe to trust, depends, among other factors, on you purpose.

Are you curious about the activities of a professional literary society, need to read a chapter from Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” for tomorrow’s class, or want a quick verification of a fact from John Steinbeck’s biography?

 Below is a list of reliable sources – home pages of professional literary organizations, online collections of full texts of literary works, and instructional web sites found or created by librarians and English Departments’ faculty.

Professional organizations:

The American Literature Association - A coalition of societies devoted to the study of American authors.

The Academy of American Poets - The academy was created to foster the understanding of contemporary poetry and to support American poets at all stages of their careers.

Association of Literary Scholars and Critics - The site is devoted to the teachers of English, scholars, and serious students of literature.

Modern Language Association of America

Collections of literary works online:

Literary Resources on the Net - Jack Lynch, creator of this site, works as Associate professor at the English Department at the Rutgers University. He offers a very comprehensive and extensive coverage of literary web sites. Provides links to literary criticism, guides, bibliographies, newsgroups, electronic journals, and literary texts.

Voice of the Shuttle, English Literature - An excellent comprehensive site for information on general humanities. It provides links to literary criticism, guides, bibliographies, newsgroups, electronic journals, literary texts, and web sites about particular authors and periods.

The Internet Public Library - Provides links to online versions of the original works of contemporary fiction.

Internet Public Library Literary Criticism - IPL Literary Criticism Collection contains critical and biographical websites about authors and their works that can be browsed by author, by title, or by nationality and literary period.

Project Gutenberg - Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. It provides access to 20,000 free online books, fiction and reference. The total number of titles offered is 100,000. The site is updated nightly.

The Online Books Page - A collection of online books created by the University of Pennsylvania faculty. The site contains an index of thousands of online books available on the Internet, provides pointers to online directories, archives of online texts, and exhibits of particularly interesting classes of online books (including the prize winning and banned books).

Project Bartleby Archive - Provides free access to online full text of fiction, nonfiction, verse, and reference sources. Includes links to reputable reference editions such as American Heritage Dictionary, Roget II Thesaurus, Columbia World of Quotations, and many others.

Renascence Editions - online repository of works printed in English between 1477 and 1799. Use it for its collection of primary documents. The site does not provide biographical information. Created at the University of Oregon. 

Bibliomania - A very comprehensive site with free online texts of poems, short stories, drama, classic novels by international authors, study guides, reference materials, biographies, and much more.

Eighteenth-Century Studies - This collection archives works of the eighteenth century from the perspectives of literary and cultural studies. Novels, plays, memoirs, treatises and poems of the period are kept here (in some cases, influential texts from before 1700 or after 1800 as well), along with modern criticism.

Instructional web sites:

The Writing Center - an excellent writing guide created at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Provides descriptions of all the stages of writing a paper, including guidelines on citing sources and avoiding plagiarism.

Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL) - an extensive guide for students and teachers, with a number of handouts for various stages in the writing process, including citing sources. Created at the University of Purdue. 

Diana Hacker’s Citation Guide from Bedford/St. Martins web site. For more than thirty years, Diana hacker was a member of the English faculty at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland. The site includes both theory of citing sources in various styles, and sample papers.

If you decide to navigate the rough waters of the Internet on your own, consider consulting the Evaluating Web Sites handout prepared by OIT librarians. It will arm you with the necessary criteria for the critical evaluation of a web site.

3.  You Are Citing Your Sources                     

After the research paper is completed, every researcher makes the last necessary step – preparing and writing a list of the sources used in the paper. Some papers also require including in-text citations, which point the reader towards the sources listed at the end of the paper. The list of the used sources allows the reader to see the scope and the scholarly nature of the paper, shows its author’s awareness of the current and historical research on the topic, and can serve as references for further reading on the subject.

Another important reason to cite the used sources is to avoid plagiarism. Even unintentional plagiarism can seriously harm the author’s reputation, and lead to the failure of his or her work.

Plagiarism is considered an act of academic dishonesty at Oregon Institute of Technology. Get familiar with the Student Academic Integrity policy of OIT; it can be found inside the Student Handbook, Appendix A (click here to see the document).

The OIT librarians have prepared instructional materials on how to avoid plagiarism and its consequences. Access the materials through the link Avoiding Plagiarism on the Library’s "Get Help" page.

Look for the MLA citation style manual in the reference section of the OIT Library:

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6^th ed. New York: MLA, 2003.

Call number: REF Z253.G53 2003.

See also MLA citation style handouts, prepared by the OIT librarians, and MLA web site.

Some additional useful sources in citing materials are listed above in the Instructional websites section of the pathfinder.

If You Still Have Questions

Research is a fascinating, but also a very challenging and complex process. As you move through the stages of creating your paper, it is natural if you have questions and doubts. In this case don’t hesitate to turn to the OIT reference librarians for help!

You can reach us –

in person during reference service hours

by phone at: 541-885-1773

by e-mail

by submitting your question via our online request form.

Embark on your amazing journey through the world of English and American literature,

… And Good Luck!

Subject librarian for Humanities and Social Sciences: Alla Powers

Last updated:  October 29, 2007