Skip to Main Content
Research Guides@Tufts

English Literature: Resources for Undergraduates

Resources for Undergraduate Study of Literature in English

Find 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 journal articles in databases, online, and in print.

Search by Keyword, Title, Subject, or Creator

Search for Articles on Topics in English in these Databases

Below is a selection of online resources that include a vast number of articles on topics in English, including literary criticism. The resources on this page include articles from both scholarly and popular sources, so be sure to evaluate your sources to make sure that they are appropriate for your project.

Database Search Strategies

Databases respond best to keyword searching.  To search efficiently, turn your research question into a keyword search:

Research Question:  How is race portrayed in Octavia Butler's Kindred?

Search One: (Search with keywords connected by “and”): 
race and Octavia Butler and Kindred

Search Two: (Truncate some of the keywords using *): 
rac* and Octavia Butler and Kindred

Search Three: (Add alternate words into the search with “(or)”): 
(rac* or ethnic* or stereotyp*) and Octavia Butler and Kindred

Truncate keywords where applicable.  Truncation uses the asterisk (*) to end a word at its core, allowing you to retrieve many more documents containing variations of the search term.  Truncation can also be used to find the singular and plural forms of a term.  Example: educat* will find educate, educates, education, educators, educating and more.