ENG102: Writing About Literature (Torregrossa)
Why should I look for academic articles?
Why should you do research in academic journals?
- Academic journal articles are often authored by scholars active in a particular field
- Academic journal articles provide a close look at a particular topic
- Academic journal articles often provide data to support their findings
- Academic journal articles can lead readers to other sources through their bibliographies
If you find one good article that supports your research, you can use the bibliography at the end of the paper to locate further research.
Finding Articles through the BCC Libraries
BCC Libraries offer a variety of databases in which you can locate magazine, newspaper, trade, and scholarly journal articles. The databases below have been chosen especially for research for ENG102.
To use the databases Jstor and Literary Criticism Online at the Boston Public Library, you need to sign up for an eCard.
Access to Electronic Databases
The Boston Public Library provides many excellent databases for people who reside and/or work in Massachusetts. Some of those databases are also available from the BCC Learning Resources Center, others are not.
You need a BPL card to use their databases. You can even register online for a BPL eCard in order to have remote access to the databases. The registration process takes only a few seconds.
Who can get a Library Card?
You are eligible for a library card if you are:
- A resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
- A Massachusetts property owner
- Employed in Massachusetts
- Attending school in Massachusetts
- A resident of temporary housing
- If you are not a resident of Massachusetts, use the address of Bristol Fall River Campus: 777 Elsbree Street, Fall River, MA 02720
Those who fulfill the Massachusetts resident requirement (above) can sign up for a temporary (3 years) Boston Public Library eCard via the web. BPL eCards are virtual library cards that allow users immediate access to all of the Boston Public Library's electronic resources, including magazine databases, downloadable audio, video and music. eCard users who wish to check out library materials will be asked to upgrade to a standard BPL card. For more information about eCards, please visit the library's FAQ.
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Finding Keywords
Recommended Databases for English
- Dictionary of Literary Biography - Gale This link opens in a new windowFull text database providing biographical and critical essays on the lives, works, and careers of the world's most influential literary figures from all eras and genre. The award-winning Gale Literature: Dictionary of Literary Biography provides comprehensive access to the series dedicated to making literature and its creators better understood and more accessible to students and interested readers while simultaneously satisfying the standards of librarians, teachers, and scholars. The series provides reliable information on authors and their works in an easy to understand, engaging format, while placing writers in the larger perspective of literary history. Dictionary of Literary Biography includes the main series, documentary, and yearbook volumes.
- Literature Resource Center (Gale) This link opens in a new window
An integrated research experience, Gale Literary Sources brings together Gale's premier literary databases in a new digital environment that allows researchers, faculty and students to search across these resources to discover and analyze content in entirely new ways. Literary criticism, author biographies, literary journals, overviews or 75,000 frequently studied works, and over 30,000 poems, short stories and plays. Includes Contemporary Literary Criticism-Select, an extensive collection of critical essays on contemporary writers.
- Gale eBooks (Virtual Reference Library) This link opens in a new windowFull text database providing subject specific dictionaries, encyclopedias and general reference books as well as the online version of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Subjects include science, history, medicine, psychology and mental health, literature, drama, film, popular culture, business, law, and more.
- JSTORA digital library founded in 1995. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now also includes books and primary sources, and current issues of journals. It provides full-text searches of almost 2,000 journals.
- Literature Criticism OnlineGale™ takes literature, history and culture to the next level with the largest, most extensive compilation of literary commentary available: Literature Criticism Online. Imagine centuries of analysis - the scholarly and popular commentary from broadsheets, pamphlets, encyclopedias, books and periodicals - delivered in an easy-to-use 24/7 online format that matches the exact look and feel of the print originals. The net result is tens of thousands of hard-to-find essays at your fingertips. It's all designed to raise the level of research while providing the around-the-clock remote access that today's researchers demand.
Other Suggested Databases
- Academic OneFile (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Multi-disciplinary database containing mostly peer-reviewed, scholarly articles from the world's leading journals and reference sources. Over 8,000 academic journal titles are included with extensive coverage of the physical sciences, technology, medicine, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature and many other subjects. Also includes hundreds of podcasts and transcripts from NPR, CNN, and CBC, as well as full text New York Times content back to 1995. Coverage 1964 – present.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Designed for academic institutions, this database is a leading resource for scholarly research. It supports high-level research in the key areas of academic study by providing journals, periodicals, reports, books and more.
