LibGuides: English: Finding Articles

Specialized databases

MLA International Bibliography
Our main database for literature, which also covers language, linguistics, composition, and creative writing.
See the box in the right hand column for several videos with tips for using this database.
Literature Resource Center
Biographical, bibliographical and critical content for literature from all time periods and genres. Includes content from Gale's Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, and Dictionary of Literary Biography.
Cross-search multiple literary source databases in > Gale Literary Sources
(Gale Cengage)
Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online
Search and find biographical and critical essays on the lives, works, and careers of literary figures from all eras and genres.
(Gale Cengage)
Cross-search multiple literary source databases with > Gale Literary Sources

Interdisciplinary options-- These options include sources from many different disciplines.

Library Search

Library Search cross searches a huge amount of our library content.

JSTOR
JSTOR covers all subject areas, but only has select journals from each. It is much less comprehensive for any area of English literature than the MLA International Bibliography. One strength is that you can search the full-text of everything.
Project MUSE
Project Muse is very similar to JSTOR (description above).

Historical Context

Some literature research projects also require sources on the historical context either presented in a particular work or on the historical context of the period when the work was written. Here are your best bets.

1) Start with books, especially if you are looking for a broad overview of some aspect of a historical period (politics, race, gender, class, etc.). You can begin by searching our catalog through the Library Search tool.

If you don't find anything, double check for sources we don't have by searching Google books or Amazon. we can get them through interlibrary loan.

2) If you are looking for something more specific, journal articles are the way to go. We have two main databases for these:

America: History and Life with Full Text
Source of information focusing on the history and life of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present.

For more help, watch the library's tutorials on using limiters
and using the advanced search with Boolean searching.
(EBSCO database)
Historical Abstracts with Full Text
Articles on the history of the world from 1450 to the present.
History of the United States and Canada are covered in America: History and Life

For more help, watch the library's tutorials on using limiters
and using the advanced search with Boolean searching.
(EBSCOhost)

For the topics of English Education, Composition, and ESL, the MLA International Bibliography has some materials, but is far from comprehensive. See the list of databases below for other ideas of where to research topics in those areas.

Education Source
Education Source contains the largest and most complete collection of full-text education journals providing scholarly research and information to meet the needs of education students, professionals, and policy makers. It covers all levels of education — from early childhood to higher education — as well as all educational specialties.
(EBSCOhost)
ERIC
Full-text documents for a variety of source types including journal articles, books, conference papers, curriculum guides, policy papers and more. In addition, it provides an education-specific thesaurus that includes controlled vocabulary to help users find what they need.
(EBSCOhost)
MLA International Bibliography
We get this database, Education Source, and ERIC from the same vendor, EBSCO. When you go into one, look for a link next to the database title that says "choose databases". You can add the other two and search all three at once!

CompPile
This free online citation index covers "publications in writing studies, including post-secondary composition, rhetoric, technical writing, ESL, and discourse analysis". Its downside is that it is not compatible with the library's "check availability" system, so any article citations must be checked individually in the library's system.

Core database:

Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
Covers all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Documents indexed include journal articles, book reviews, books, book chapters, dissertations and working papers.
(ProQuest)

Linguistics research guide
We also have many other databases specific to other subject areas that have some coverage of linguistics. The full list can be found on the Linguistics research guide.

Creative Writing Research Guide

For databases related to creative writing, please see our separate guide dedicated to the topic.

I love Library Search for film. It does a great job of pulling together articles that you otherwise would need to search 5-10 databases to find. You may want to remove newspaper and magazine articles from your search results, otherwise they can overwhelm your results.

FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database
This database is dedicated to film and television studies. It has a mix of scholarly journal and popular magazine articles. It is less comprehensive than OneSearch, but has some very useful search features that let you search for a specific film by title or look up a director.

Articles written about Journalism

We do not have any databases that focus on articles about journalism, so Library Search is your best bet for this type of research.

Finding newspaper and magazine articles

You can search Library Search for these as well, but we also have a ton of specialized databases that include both modern and historical newspaper and magazine articles. Here are a few of my favorites:

U.S. Major Dailies
Formerly called National Newspapers Core.
Search or browse full text issues of:
-Los Angeles Times (1997-current)
-New York Times (1980-current)
-Wall Street Journal (1984-current)
-Washington Post (1987-current)
(ProQuest)
Philadelphia Inquirer (Image Edition)
Search more than 35 years of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania history with the Philadelphia Inquirer Collection. Coverage from 1981 through today, including full-text, web-only content and full-color image edition.
(NewsBank)
Newspaper Source
Cover-to-cover full text for more than 40 U.S. and international newspapers, including the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Times (London) - and selective full text for more than 330 regional (U.S.) newspapers. Also includes full-text television & radio news transcripts from CBS News, CNN, CNN International, FOX News, NPR, etc.
(EBSCOhost)
Historical Newspapers (ProQuest)
For historical newspaper articles going back to around 1850. We have many others, but this one is the easiest to use and and covers several major newspapers.

Children's Literature Guide
For databases related to children's literature, please see our separate guide dedicated to the topic.

Interlibrary Loan

When searching the library's databases, you may find articles you want that we do not have access to. You can get them for free through a service called interlibrary loan, and it usually only takes one or two days.

From a database:

1. Instead of a link to a PDF below the article, you will see a link called check availability.

2. If we have the full text,the page that opens will provide a link under the "View It" heading.

3. If we don't own the full text, you can access our interlibrary loan system for articles, called ILLiad, by logging into the system using your WCU email address and password. Look for the link on the yellow bar in the middle of the page.

4. Once you log in, you will see the link to go to ILLiad.

5. If it is your first time logging into the system, it may ask you some questions about your delivery preferences.

6. The system will try to fill in the required blanks with the relevant information about the article. Double check to make sure that all the required blanks are filled. If not, go back to the tab with the article info to cut and paste the other required info.

From Library Search:

Google Scholar

Beyond the library's databases, you can also try Google Scholar to find scholarly articles. Because the Google search algorithms work differently than databases, you may find different results than when searching in online databases, even with similar search terms.

Before searching Google Scholar, click on the settings cog and look for the 'library links' option on the left. Search for West Chester University, then click on the box next to the result that says West Chester University Libraries-- Find-It @WCU, and hit save. By doing this, you are tying into our library's system that will show you if we have access to particular articles, either online or in our print collection. After you have done this, some of your search results (articles, but not books) will have a link by them that says either Find-It @ WCU or Check Availability @ WCU, that you can click on to access the system. Some books will have a Library Search link that takes you into Google Books and allows you to see if WCU carries that title.

Also, remember to try Google Scholar's Advanced Search screen. This allows you some of the search features that appear in databases and can help you to make your results more precise.