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Tisch Library
Tufts University
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Medford, MA 02155
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How to Use This Guide
Welcome to the Tisch Library guide to resources for the undergraduate study of literature in English. Use the table of contents to find definitions, topic overviews, books, articles, and more that will help you with your research.
If you don't find what you are looking for or need help navigating this guide or any of the resources it contains, don't hesitate to contact the author of this guide or Ask a Librarian.
Gathering Background Information
What is background information? You probably already use Wikipedia, which is a background source and includes lots of helpful information. But there's a lot more than Wikipedia! Background information comes from places like dictionaries and subject encyclopedias (the "pedia" in Wikipedia) . Background sources provide context and answer straightforward questions. They include definitions, statistics, and other details. You can use this type of source to:
- Define your terms
- Help narrow your research topic
- Find data to support your thesis
- Identify keywords and main ideas to use as search terms.
The following resources can help you learn to gather high-quality background information.
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Credo ReferenceOnline reference resources from numerous publishers. This reference resource can be searched by individual title, broad subject headings, cross-references, audio and images. Use its research mapper to search for terms and topics that are interconnected and displayed in (a) visual form. Examples of titles are: Bloomsbury Guide to Art, Bridgeman Art Library Archive, Columbia Encyclopedia, Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, Harvard Dictionary of Music, and the Concise Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science. The complete list of titles is available on the CREDO Reference site.
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Oxford ReferenceProvides web access to more than 100 major Oxford University Press dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works in the humanities, social sciences, foreign languages, science, technology and medicine, the performing arts, and religion. Works can be searched separately or across the entire databases. Includes over 1.5 million entries.
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Oxford English Dictionary (OED)The Oxford English Dictionary is the most authoritative dictionary of the English language. In both the print and online versions, entries include a history of where a word was first published, alternate spellings, pronunciations and an etymological analysis.
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Gale eBooksGale eBooks is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research.
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Literature in ContextDiscovering Literature brings to life the social, political and cultural context in which key works of literature were written. Enjoy digitised treasures from the British Library's collection, newly commissioned articles, short documentary films, and more.
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British Council Writers DirectoryThis unique, searchable database contains profiles of some of the UK and Commonwealth's most important living writers, as well as many other writers from these regions. Included in the profiles are biographies, bibliographies, critical reviews, and information about awards.
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Directory of Poets & WritersThe Directory of Poets & Writers lists names, addresses, and publication credits for over 11,000 contemporary American authors. Includes biographies, publications, awards, and more.
Find Books and Articles in JumboSearch
Want to discover everything that Tisch Library has on your topic? Try searching for your topic in JumboSearch, which simultaneously searches across all of the library's resources, including: books from the library catalog; journal articles in databases, online and in print; research guides on your topic; digital files from the Archives; and much, much more!
Recommended Web Resources
There are a lot of great resources on the web where you can find information about English Literature as well as online primary texts (stories, poems, plays, and novels) and recordings of literature being read aloud. Have fun exploring!
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American LiteratureLinks to resources on American authors, a timeline, literary movements and other American literature sites created by Professor Donna Campbell of Washington State University.
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Bartleby.comIncludes the Oxford Book of English Verse, Yale Book of American Verse, reference works on quotation and usage as well as selected works of fiction.
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Bulfinch's MythologyProvides the complete text of the standard guide to Western mythology.
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A Celebration of Women WritersInformation, descriptions and related links focusing on women writers throughout history.
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Early Modern Literary StudiesOnline journal devoted to English literature of the 16th and 17th Centuries.
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Eighteenth-Century ResourcesCovers all of the significant and reliable online resources that focus on the (very long) eighteenth century--from Milton to Keats.
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Encyclopedia MythicaAward-winning internet encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and religion. Here you will find everything from A-gskw to Zveda Vechanyaya, with plenty in between.
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Harry Ransom Center Digital CollectionsThe Harry Ransom Center is an internationally renowned humanities research library and museum. Its extensive holdings provide a unique record of the creative process of writers and artists, deepening our understanding of literature, photography, film, art, and the performing arts.
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The Labyrinth: Resources for Medieval StudiesFrom Georgetown University, medieval studies links arranged by topic.
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Luminarium: Anthology of English LiteratureLife, works, essays, quotes and works for authors from Middle English, Renaissance and 17th-Century literature.
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Oxford DictionariesOxford Dictionaries provides free access that allows users to: explore its current English dictionary and thesaurus; listen to audio pronunciations; browse the grammar hub; and much more.
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PennSoundListen to poetry read aloud, author talks and more at this comprehensive site from the University of Pennsylvania.
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Poet's CornerThe collection covers roughly 7,000 works by about 800 poets, including some of the best known works in the English language, as well as many obscure and forgotten works that are well worth reading.
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Romanticism and Victorianism on the NetRomanticism and Victorianism on the Net (RaVoN) is an International Refereed Electronic Journal devoted to British Nineteenth-Century Literature.
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SurLaLune Fairy TalesProvides an introduction to fairy tales and folklore and includes the annotated full text of selected classic fairy tales as well as reproductions of famous illustrations.
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The Victorian WebInformation on a variety of topics in the Victorian period, including a timeline, information on genre and technique and author-related links.
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Voice of the ShuttleExtensive humanities database broken down into precise categories by period and theme.
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Westminster Detective LibraryIt is the mission of the Westminster Detective Library to catalog and make available online all the short fiction dealing with detectives and detection published in the United States before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891).