Research Guides: Honors English Research: Finding Secondary Sources

Literature Databases

W&M Libraries subscribe to dozens of secondary source databases. These are a handful of tools likely to have biographical information, reviews, and literary criticism as they relate to English literature, but see the full list here.

Humanities International Complete This link opens in a new window
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Literature & the literary arts, philosophy, the arts, history, culture, and creative thought. Journal articles, books, and other sources from around the world. Coverage: Varies by title.
MLA International Bibliography with Full-Text This link opens in a new window
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Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the MLA International Bibliography is the definitive index for the study of language, literature, linguistics, rhetoric and composition, folklore, and film, covering scholarly publications from the early 20th century to the present.
Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new window
Commentaries on major literary works. Includes Contemporary Literary Criticism, Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Shakespeare Criticism, Literature Criticism 1400-1800, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Short Story Criticism, Drama Criticism, and Children's Literature Review. Coverage: Varies by title.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
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Arts, humanities, and social sciences. Journal articles. Coverage: Varies by title. Access is available to 2007+ alumni; requires W&M userid and password.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary full-text journal articles from 1,500 major journals. Please note: In many cases, JSTOR does not include the most recent 3 to 5 years of these journals. Please use other databases to retrieve recent articles, especially for current events topics. Coverage: Varies by title. Access is available to 2007+ alumni; requires W&M userid and password.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines.

Your research will also likely benefit from secondary research outside of English and literary studies - see the full list of databases sorted by discipline here.

Books and Book Chapters

Secondary scholarship in English is frequently published as monographs (books) or book chapters. Use the W&M Libraries catalog and WorldCat to find books and book chapters for your research.

Books & Media: W&M Libraries Catalog
Find books owned by W&M Libraries.
WorldCat
Search for materials owned by of tens of thousands of academic, public, and special libraries internationally.

Don't pay for books or articles!

If you're unable to get full text access to an article, or you need a book not owned by W&M Libraries, use Interlibrary Loan rather than paying for the item yourself. It's free to you, and digital copies usually take less than 48 hours to be delivered.

Research Librarian

Liz Bellamy

she/her/hers

Email Me

Contact:

Swem Library, Room 127

757-221-3076

Subjects: American Studies, English, Linguistics