ENC 1102: Finding Literary Criticism & More (Dale Mabry): Tips

"Search Terms" are keywords and phrases (not a whole sentence) that describe your topic. Below are examples of ways you can use search terms to find sources:

• "war of the worlds" wells
  • Title in "quotation marks" followed by author's last name.
    • Enclosing words that go together in quotation marks helps with phrase searching.
• "war of the worlds" and wells and imperial*
  • Title of the work plus author's last name and topic keyword
    • The keyword truncated by the asterisk* picks up all forms of the word (imperialist, imperialism).
• "british imperialism"
  • Topical keywords only.
  • Picks up material about the topic in general, not necessarily connected with a particular author or literary work.
• wells, h.g.
  • Author's last name followed by a comma, and first name.
  • Lastname, Firstname search picks up material about the author's life and works in general.

When you view results:

eBooks, articles, and other online content require a log-in - refer to the Help tab above for more info.

• Save them - Many library search tools provide ways to save results or email them to yourself. 
  • If you email to yourself, you may be able to add a subject line or notes to remind you why you picked that item.
• Use citation help - Many library search tools provide example citations in APA, MLA, and other popular formats. HCC Libraries HCC Libraries Citation Guide will also help.

Some databases include options for translation, audio of the article, and more.

This video tutorial shows how to find literary criticism in the library catalog and in various literary databases. The catalog search portion begins at 00:01:06. Captions are available.