Finding Literary Criticism and Biographies of the Author

Literary Criticism

Literary criticism is basically essays, articles, books, etc., written by experts discussing various aspects of the text. There are quite a few schools of criticism like deconstructionist, feminist, Marxist, psychoanalytic, etc. There are two best places to find literary criticism, and many other sites that are almost as good.

The Internet Public Library Online Literary Criticism Collection. 11/29/01. <http://www.ipl.org/ref/litcrit/> (accessed 12/12/01).

  1. You have three choices: time period, author, or title. The most direct path is to "browse works by title." Example: Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. Click on C-D.
  2. Scroll down to find the work and click on it.
  3. Review the page, do any of these titles look helpful? Click on the title to review the work

Note: If Access Restrictions has an NL beside it, the work is available for a fee from the Northern Light webpage.

The other place is the Gale Literature Resource Center
  1. Go to the library's home page: www.prge.lib.md.us
  2. Click on information tools and resources
  3. Click on licensed databases
  4. Two-thirds of the way down on the left hand side you will see a link for the Literature Resource Center.
  5. On the next page, enter your library card number (all 14 digits, no spaces) and click on submit
  6. From the main menu you choose to search by the title of the work or the author. I recommend selecting advanced search and searching by author, title, and what you are looking for (criticism).

 

Biographies

Some instructors want essays based purely on what is in the text--not historical setting or the author's background. If, on the other hand, examining these elements would help your paper then the best place to get biographies is the The Biography Resource Center by Gale Group. This is an online database to which Prince George's County Memorial Library System subscribes. To use it:

  1. Go to the library's home page: www.prge.lib.md.us
  2. Click on information tools and resources
  3. Click on licensed databases
  4. Halfway down on the left hand side you will see a link for the Biography Resource Center.
  5. On the next page, enter your library card number (all 14 digits, no spaces) and click on submit
  6. From the main menu you can search by any or all of the person's name.

Note: Narrative biographies are essays about 2-3 pages long and thumbnail biographies are paragraphs listing facts (most of these are about living people).

Now you're ready to write the paper

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Created by Christina Kirk Pikas as a final project for LBSC 750: Information Access in Electronic Environments at the University of Maryland College of Information Studies.

Last Updated: December 14, 2001.

 

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