Outline of this guide: Handy Tools MLA Style: Guides & RefWorks Reference Works: Background Information Books & Videos Articles

Related guides: Book Review Sources Copyright The Dewey Decimal System: An Outline Film Review Sources The Library of Congress Classification System: An Outline RefWorks RefWorks: A Guide Research Log Research Planner Text a Librarian

Questions?

• Office hours:
  • Monday 1:00-3:00 pm
  • Tuesday, 3:00-5:00 pm
  • Wednesday, 1:00-2:00 pm
  Location: Consultation Room (directly behind the reference desk)
• Also available by appointment.

Handy Tools

• MLA Directory of Periodicals
• Serials Directory
• Ulrich's Periodical Directory

• The Craft of Research. Wayne C. Booth et al. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2008.
• How to Write a B.A. Thesis: A Practical Guide from your First Ideas to your Finished Paper. Charles Lipson. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2005.
  LC Stacks LB2369 .L54 2005
• MLA Style & RefWorks
  See below.

MLA Style: Guides & RefWorks

• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 7th ed. New York: Modern Language Association, 2009.
  Little Library Reference Desk: REF LB2369 .G53 2009
  
  • Have an older edition of the MLA Handbook?
    For an overview of the changes in the 7th edition and examples of citations, see Documenting Sources in MLA Style: 2009 Update: A Hacker Handbooks Supplement, from Bedford/St. Martin's
• MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 3rd ed. New York: Modern Language Association, 2008.
  Reference Desk: REF PN147 .G444 2008
  A guide for scholars and professional writers.
• RefWorks
  Capture, retain, and organize citations, generate bibliographies in Chicago or MLA format, share references, and more.
  See also the library's guide to using RefWorks.
  Tip: for help in formating a bibliography that contains works in English and in Spanish, see the following:
  • Creating Non-English or Multi-Language Bibliographies
    In particular, be sure to modify records for works in Spanish by changing the "output language" field to "Spanish."
  • Adding Alternate Languages to an Output Style

Reference Works: Background Information

• Biography Reference Bank. H.W. Wilson, 2003- .
• European Writers. Ed. William T.H. Jackson. 14 vols. New York: Scribner, 1983-1991.
  Reference R 809.89 E89
  Library has vols. 1-7 only.
• Latin American Writers. Ed. Carlos A. Solé. 3 vols. New York: Scribner, 1989.
  Reference R 928.6 L357
• Literature Resource Center
  Contains full-text biographies, critical essays, journal articles, and excerpts of criticism and reviews about over 130,000 literary authors and their works; covers dramatists, essayists, novelists, poets, and other writers from all time periods.
  Note: Includes
  • Contemporary Authors. Detroit, MI: Gale: 1962- .
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1978- .
• Spanish Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Source Book. Ed. Linda Gould Levine et al. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993.
  Reference R 860.9 S735

• The Continuum Encyclopedia of Modern Criticism and Theory. Ed. Julian Wolfreys. New York: Continuum, 2002.
  Reference R 801.95 C762
• Diccionario de literatura española. Ed. Germán Bleiberg and Julian Mariás. 3rd ed. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, [1964].
  Reference R 860.3 D553
• Diccionario de literatura Española e Hispanoamericana. 2 vols. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1993.
  Reference R 860.9 D5541
• Diccionario Enciclopédico de las letras de América Latina. 3 vols. [Caracas]: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1995-1998.
  Reference R 860.9 D554
  
• Dictionary of the Literature of the Iberian Peninsula. Ed. German Bleiberg et al. 2 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993.
  Reference R 860.3 D5532
• Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture. Ed. Barbara A. Tenenbaum. 5 vols. New York: Scribner's, 1996.
  Reference R 980 E56
• Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature. Ed. Verity Smith. Chicago, IL: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
  Reference R 860.3 E56
• The Feminist Encyclopedia of Spanish Literature. Ed. Janet Pérez and Maureen Ihrie. 2 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002.
  Reference R 860.9 F329
• Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century. Ed. Steven R. Serafin. 5 vols. Farmington Hills, MI: St. James Press, 1999.
  Reference R 803 E562 1999
• The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Ed. Michael Groden et al. 2nd ed. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2005.
  Reference R 801.95 J65 2005
• Manual de literatura española. Felipe B. Pedraza Jiménez, Milagros Rodríguez Cáceres. 14 vols. Pamplona: Cenlit, 1980–2000.
  Little Library Stacks 860.9 P371m
• Modern Latin American Literature. Ed. David William Foster and Virginia Ramos Foster. 2 vols. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1975.
  Reference R 860.9 F754m
• Modern Spanish and Portuguese Literatures. Ed. Marshall J. Schneider and Irwin Stern. New York: Continuum, 1988.
  Reference R 860.9 M689
• The Oxford Companion to Spanish Literature. Ed. Philip Ward. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
  Reference R 860.3 O98
• Reference Guide to Short Fiction. Ed. Thomas Riggs. 2nd ed. Detroit, MI: St. James Press, 1999.
• Reference Guide to World Literature. Ed. Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast. 3rd ed. 2 vols. Detroit, MI: St. James Press, 2003.
  Reference R 809 R332

Books & Videos

General search tips:

• Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to connect terms/concepts
• In most databases, the truncation symbol is a *
• Enclose phrases in double quotation marks " "

• Library Catalog
  Lists books, videos, government documents, and journals, magazines, and newspapers available in our Library.
  • To locate works about a person, do a subject search for the person's name (last name first).
  • To find videos, do a keyword search and limit your search by the format "video materials (VHS/DVD)."
  Tip: truncation symbol: $
• ebrary
  A collection of over 50,000 e-books published by over 220 academic, trade, and professional publishers; covers all subject areas. Mostly English-language. Also includes tools that allow you to create your own virtual bookshelf, bookmark pages, and add and save notes and highlights.
  Note: for full functionality, you need the ebrary Reader. This plugin is on all library and ITS computers, but if you are using your own computer, you can download it from the ebrary home page.
• WorldCat
  Lists books, videos, periodicals, and other materials held by North American and some European libraries. You can submit an interlibrary loan request to borrow books that aren't available at Davidson.
  • Identify relevant Library of Congress Subject Headings in the Library Catalog first; you can then do a subject search in WorldCat to find additional items with these subject headings.

• Google Books
  Be sure to limit your search to "Full view only" or "Public Domain only" in order to find books that you can view cover-to-cover and/or download.
  For more information about public domain, see our guide to works in the public domain.
• Hathi Trust
  A digital collection of works held by a number of major research libraries. Be sure to limit your search to "Full view only" to view works that you can view cover-to-cover.
  Note: as of October 2010, only 23% of works in the Hathi Trust are in the public domain. For more information about public domain, see our guide to works in the public domain.
• Library Catalogs Worldwide

Articles

Starting Points | Journal Articles | Articles in Newspapers & Popular Magazines

General search tips:

• Use Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to connect terms/concepts
• In most databases, the truncation symbol is a *
• Enclose phrases in double quotation marks " "

• Academic Search Premier
  (1975 to present) Indexes popular and scholarly articles in a broad range of subject areas; also includes citations to book reviews and citations to articles in several national newspapers.
• OmniFile Full Text Mega
  (1982 to present) Indexes articles from over 3,000 scholarly and popular periodicals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences; also includes the full text of selected articles from over 1,650 of these periodicals.

Core Indexes, Databases, & Bibliographies for Literature

• MLA International Bibliography
  (1926 to present). Indexes journal articles, books, and doctoral dissertations in the fields of English, American, European, Asian, African, and Latin American linguistics, modern languages and literatures, film studies, and folklore.
  For more information, see the MLAIB Search Planner.
• Web of Knowledge
  (c. 1900 to present) A multidisciplinary resource that provides citations to articles in thousands of journals in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Includes Arts and Humanities Citation Index.

• Anthropology Plus
  (Late 19th century to present) Indexes journal articles, edited books, commentaries, and reports in the fields of biological, cultural, linguistic, physical, and social anthropology.
• Bibliographic Index
  (1984 to present) A bibliography of bibliographies; indexes bibliographies published in books, pamphlets, and more than 2,800 periodicals. Includes citations to literature reviews and serial bibliographies.
• CIAO: Columbia International Affairs Online
  (1991 to present) A collection of resources on international affairs. Includes citations to journal articles and books; also includes the full text of over 400 working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, proceedings from conferences, policy briefs, and economic indicators.
• Contemporary Women's Issues
  (1992 to present) Indexes popular articles, scholarly articles, books, newsletters, and reports on all aspects of women's studies, including gender, sociology, education, political science, and health.
• Essay & General Literature Index
  (1900 to present) Indexes chapters and essays in edited collections.
• Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) Online
  (1935 to present) Indexes journal articles, books, book chapters, and conference papers covering topics related to Latin America; covers the fields of anthropology, archaeology, art, economics, geography, history, international relations, languages and literatures, music, philosophy, political science, and sociology.
• HAPI (Hispanic American Periodicals Index) Online
  (1970 to present) Indexes journal articles, book reviews, and original literary works and covers the literature, history, culture, and politics of the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America, and the United States-Mexico border. Also covers works related to Hispanics in the United States.
• Historical Abstracts
  (Time period covered: 1450 to present. Publication coverage: 1954 to present). Indexes journal articles, book chapters, doctoral dissertations, and book reviews.
• Humanities Abstracts
  (1907 to present [publication date of articles indexed]) Indexes journal articles and some book reviews on all humanities subjects, including history, classics, art, archeology, literature, philosophy, and religion.
• International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance
  (c. 1982 to present) Includes citations to journal articles, books, essays, and doctoral dissertations on all aspects of dance, theatre, and the performing arts; international in scope. Includes the full text of 100 periodicals and over 350 e-books.
• ITER: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance
  (400-1700 [historical time period covered]; 1842 to present [publication date of articles and books indexed]) Indexes scholarly articles and books on topics related to the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
• JSTOR
  A collection of the back issues of over 1,200 electronic journals in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences. Note: JSTOR does not usually contain articles from the most recent 3-5 years.
  Tip: truncation symbol: +
• Periodicals Index Online
  (c. 1665-1995) Indexes journal and magazine articles as well as book reviews in a broad array of humanities, social sciences, and science subjects.
• Project Muse
  A collection of over 400 electronic journals in the humanities and social sciences.
• Sociological Abstracts
  (1963 to present) Indexes journal articles in sociology and related fields, including anthropology, economics, education, philosophy, political science, and social psychology.
• Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
  (1975 to present) Indexes over 1,000 political science journals. Covers the fields of comparative politics, economic policy, international relations, and political economy, among others. International in scope.

Be sure to search the two "starting points databases," Academic Search Premier and OmniFile Full Text Mega, too.

• LexisNexis Academic
  (c. 1980 to present) Provides the full text of articles from local, national, and international newspapers, magazines, and trade journals.
  Tip: to find Spanish-language and international newspapers, try the following:
  • On the left-hand side of the page, click on "News" and then "All news." On the next page, under "News" on the left-hand side, choose "foreign language." Enter your search terms and limit by language.
  • On the left-hand side of the page, click on "Sources," then choose "Browse sources." For step 1, leave the default setting ("publication type"). For step 2 ("filter by"), choose the country you want. When the screen refreshes, click on "News" (step 3). Select the sources you want, then click on the red "OK Continue" button. The search form will be populated with your selections; simply enter your search terms.
• Library PressDisplay
  (Current plus most recent 60 days) Full-page, full-color images of over 400 national and international newspapers, including many Spanish-language newspapers.
  Note: Up to three people can search this database at any one time; if you are unable to login because this limit has been reached, please wait a few minutes and try again.
• Periodicals Index Online
  (c. 1665-1995) Indexes journal and magazine articles as well as book reviews in a broad array of humanities, social sciences, and science subjects.