MCPHS Finding Literary Criticism

Finding Literary Criticism

Literary criticism is a particular kind of scholarly article, and is useful for analyzing and reflecting on poetry, short fiction, drama and other literature you may read.

Through this interactive tutorial you'll practice:

• Brainstorm a topic.
• Find literary criticism using an author name or the title of a work.

 

Use the arrow below to get started!

What to search for?

Figuring out a topic that you're interested in and that will work for a particular academic assignment is often the most challenging thing to do.

Here are some places to start looking for a topic:

• Course readings & lectures.
  
  
• Short stories, poems or plays you've enjoyed outside of class.
  
  
• Interesting posts on Facebook, and other corners of the Internet.

For this tutorial we're going to search for literary criticism and other scholarship on Octavia E. Butler and her work.

Let's Get Started

We're going to be exploring Artemis Literary Sources for this tutorial. This is a great resource because you're searching several databases as once!

You can get to Artemis Literary Sources through the Boston Public Library, using your BPL card/eCard (if you don't already have one, click here to create your account).

 OR

You can get to Artemis Literary Sources directly through MCPHS Libraries, courtesy of the MLBLC.

You can't choose wrong, but you have to choose one (to continue)!

Biographical Information

To start, let's search using the author's name:

Octavia Butler

Explore the content types listed next to the search results, by clicking on Literature Criticism and then on Reviews & News and seeing how the results change.

 

Using a Biography

Biographies do more than tell you about the author - they're also a great place to learn more about what an author has written, which can then help you narrow down the literature criticism-type search results.

Limit your results by content type by clicking on Biographies and then opening one of the biographies on Butler.

In Artemis, click on search results and then on back to all search results to see everything again. (Or, if you were in Credo, go back to Artemis and re-search for Octavia Butler.)

Focusing on Literature Criticism

1 of 3As you can probably guess, it's a pretty straightforward process to narrow your results to Literature Criticism - just click on it underneath Content Types.

Now, you're still looking at quite a few results. Instead of scrolling through all of the, you can search within the results using the title of particular work.

Let's search for Wild Seed.

Focusing on Literature Criticism

2 of 3If you're seeing multiple types of content (literature criticism and biographies, reviews, etc.), you can narrow it down by clicking on View All... next to Literature Criticism.

Start by browsing down the result list to see what catches your attention - click on and read those.

Research is more fun when you're interested it!

Focusing on Literature Criticism

3 of 3Keep using the filters and limits on the side of your results to narrow them down. That'll make less scrolling and reading for you; instead you'll be able to focus on articles most related to the work you're interested in.

Once you find a few articles you'd like to read, remember to download the full thing (so you can read it later), and use the citation tools to copy & paste the citation you can easily built your Reference List later.

Still Got Questions?

If you've still got questions about finding articles, citations, using the Library's resources, or anything else - just ask a librarian!

Call (Boston): 617-732-2813
Email: Submit a Question
Chat: Ask A Librarian

Or, explore our Frequently Answered Questions.

 

 

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