Skip to Main Content

English

A research guide for English Studies from West Chester University Libraries

Introduction to English Studies databases

English Studies is comprised of numerous subdisciplines.  The best databases to use for research can vary depending on the subdiscipline or specific topic.  The table below has tabs along the top to help you find the best resources for different types of research.

Literature and Rhetoric

Core database

Other databases (sources are not scholarly)

English Education and Composition

For research into English Education and Composition, 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.

Film

I love Library Search tool (search box on the library home page) 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.

Linguistics

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 several specialized databases that include both modern and historical newspaper and magazine articles.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Digital Humanities

Because a Digital Humanities' project can be created on almost any topic imaginable, the best starting point for topic-based research is going to be our interdisciplinary Library Search tool.

Digital Humanities tools

If you are looking for tools to use in the creation of your project, try this page:

Creative Writing

For scholarship on writing genres/sub-genres, use the MLA International Bibliography.

Children's/YA literature

Scholarship on young adult and children's literature

Scholarship on young adult and children's literature is published in multiple disciplines, so the Library Search tool is the best bet for finding it.

Scholarship on teaching children's literature

For teaching young adult or children's literature, see the tab for English Education resources.

More resources

West Chester University   ---    WCU Libraries  25 West Rosedale Avenue, West Chester, PA 19383  610-430-4400