Research Tips & Tools

Course Guide:

English 480: Senior Seminar 1

Professor Deborah Robinson

Finding Books

Use the HELIN Library Catalog to locate books and other materials.

HELIN offers two search types: Heading and Keyword.

Heading Searches:

Headings searches are by Subject heading, Author or Title.

Look for words that match the search word, or follow it alphabetically.
Display subheadings which can be very useful when searching broad topic areas.
Can often provide accurate results when searching for broad topic areas.

Use this type of search when you know the name of an author, a correct title, or a Library of Congress Subject Heading.

Sample subject headings for this class:

Marie De France 12th Cent
Chaucer Geoffrey D 1400 Wife Of Baths Tale
Chivalry
Arthur, King

Keyword Searching:

Use this type of search when you do not know the proper LC Subject heading for your topic, or when you know some of the words but not all the words in a title. Or to expand or narrow your search.

Allows you to use Boolean operators (AND, OR and NOT) to broaden , narrow, or define your search.
Allows for truncation of search terms.

Sample keyword searches for this class:

women and medieval
chivalry and romance
Chaucer and gender

Reference Materials

Classical Myths and Legends in the Middle Ages and Renaissance: REF PN669 B78 1998
Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism: REF PN87 C42 v.1-70
Chronology of the Medieval World: REF D118 S855 1994
Dictionary of the Middle Ages: REF D114 D5 1982 v.1-13

Finding Articles using Online Databases

Academic Search Premier - Ebsco	General periodical index providing full text for nearly 3,460 scholarly publications.
AH Search	Citations to articles in the arts and humanities.
Gale's Literature Resource Center	Full-text online access to Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, and Dictionary of Literary Biography.
JSTOR	Browse or search the full text back files of publications in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
MLA Bibliography	An index to literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore.
Project Muse	A collection of 300 high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from 60 scholarly publishers.
PsycINFO	Online version of Psychology Abstracts (PsychLIT). Choose to search databases covering years 1887 to present.
WorldCat	Worldwide catalog of books and other materials.

Finding Information on the Web

Anthology of Middle English Literature
Arthuriana: Journal of Arthurian Studies
Baragona's Arthurian Legend Home Page: Many relevant links to Arthurian and medieval literature from Alan Baragona, professor of English at VMI. Be sure to check his bibliography of Arthurian Legend in Literature and the Arts.
Geoffrey Chaucer: Provides materials for Harvard University's Chaucer classes.
International Marie De France Society
Internet Public Library -- Online Literary Criticism Collection: Excellent collection of descriptive links. Arranged by country and time period.
The Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval Studies
Literary Resources - Medieval: Part of the Literary Resources page created and maintained by Jack Lynch
Literature of the French Middle Ages
Medieval Feminist Index: Indexes journal articles, book reviews, and essays in books about women, sexuality, and gender during the Middle Ages.
The Medieval Review: Formerly the Bryn Mawr Medieval Review.

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