Databases
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowThe MLA International Bibliography is a subject index for books, articles and websites published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics. It is produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), an organization dedicated to the study and teaching of language and literature.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowJSTOR is a not-for-profit organization and a shared digital library archive of critical scholarly journal literature. Louisiana State University currently participates in the following JSTOR Collection(s): Arts & Sciences Collections I-XV, Ireland Archive Collection, Life Sciences Collection, University of California Press Collection, University of Chicago Press Collection, Business IV Collection, Lives of Literature Collection, and the Sustainability Collection.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new windowProject MUSE is your trusted source for the highest quality books and journals in the humanities and social sciences from over 200 of the world’s most distinguished university presses and scholarly societies.
- Literary Reference Plus This link opens in a new window
- Gale Literature Criticism This link opens in a new window
Search Strategy Suggestions
Here are some suggestions to help you narrow down your searches:
- Use the AND drop-down menus in advanced search to combine terms (such as the author of your work and its title; the title of your work and a theme or concept; etc).
- Pay attention to the source types in your results. You are limited to scholarly books, scholarly essays, and scholarly journal articles. The first result in the example below is a dissertation, which would probably not be a good choice for this project. You can filter by source type in each of the databases on this guide.
- Use the date range options to narrow down results to sources that are more recent if you have too many results.
- Start with MLA International Bibliography first!
- After you've searched in MLAIB, you can supplement your searches with the other databases from your guide. For an idea of where to look for which source types, see below.
| Best Bets for Scholarly Journal Articles | Best Bets for Scholarly Books | Best Bets for Critical Essays |
| MLA International Bibliography | MLA International Bibliography | Literature Resource Center |
| JSTOR | Project MUSE | Literature Criticism Online Archive |
| Project MUSE | JSTOR | Literary Reference Center |
Database Tips and Tricks
Just like shopping online, before you look at those search results, make sure you are filtering your results. Filtering allows you to limit the number of results based on things like date range, full-text access, and even resource type.
The filters will often reset when you do a new search so make sure you double-check them.
I often tell students to not even look at the results without filtering first.
Language is 90% of the search. How we describe something changes depending on time, location, and field. If you aren't getting the results you want, try changing the search terms you are using. Don't be afraid to pull out that thesaurus or even search in Google for related terms.
It also helps if you search using quotes for search terms. Instead of the yellow wallpaper, try searching, "The Yellow Wallpaper". This tells the database to search not just the words, "yellow" and "wallpaper," but the phrase altogether.