WRIT 125:
The International Short Story
Fall 2009 · Professor Esther Iwanaga

Contents:

Find background information
Find books
Find scholarly journal articles
Key websites
Evaluating what you find

• Literature Online (LION) - 17th-21st century. Has literary texts from 1600 to the present with full-text literary criticism from 1998 +. Includes biographical information on authors.
• Literature Resource Center - Contains biographical, bibliographical, and critical content

In print:

• Contemporary Authors [New Revison] - Clapp Reference qZ1010 .C592 [Vol. #] If you can't find information in electronic sources for your particular author, try this series. It provides biographies, criticism, and bibliographies. The Contemporary Authors Cumulative Index (Most recent call # Z1010 .C6 1/250) will help you find information on a specific author in these multi-volume sets.
• South Asian Literature in English: An Encyclopedia - Clapp Reference PR9570.S642 S67 2004
• Who's Who in Korean Literature - Clapp Reference PL957.7 .W47 1996

Use the Wellesley library catalog to find books, videos, and journals (not individual articles). Try the new Encore interface, or use our "classic" catalog search.

• To find books written by an author, do an author search. Example: Pak, Wan-sŏ
• To find books of criticism of an author's work, add the term criticism to the author's or artist's name in a keyword search. Example: mahasweta devi criticism
• To find short stories in translation, try searching these subjects:
  • Short stories, Canadian
  • Short stories, Chinese -- Translations into English (you will also find stories from Hong Kong under this subject heading)
  • Short stories, Indic
  • Short stories, Korean -- Translations into English
  • Short stories, Romanian -- Translations into English
  • Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) -- Fiction (or do a keyword search for "short stories" or "short fiction" + tanzania in NExpress or WorldCat)
• Books are organized by call number. Need help understanding the call number system? Click here for help

If our copy of a book is checked out: Click on the NExpress button to request a book quickly (2-4 days)

To find books we don't own (in other libraries): Search WorldCat - you can also use WorldCat. Click the Find It! @ Wellesley button to request request books through ILL (interlibrary loan)

In a hurry? Get a BLC card and borrow the book directly from a nearby library

Tips:

• to find the full text of an article, click on the title for the full record, then look for the Find It! @ Wellesley button to link to the full text (online if we have it, or in print, or to the Interlibrary loan request if we don't own the journal)
  
  
• do your searching early and place interlibrary loan requests NOW for books and articles we don't have -- then, when you're ready to start reading and writing, you'll have a great selection of materials. If you wait, your choices will be very limited.

The most useful databases

The College subscribes to many databases which contain journal article citations, and in some cases, full text. Depending on your topic, you may need to search in several of these databases. Try these first:

• Contemporary Literary Criticism - Critical essays on the writings of contemporary authors
• Literature Online (LION) - 17th-20th century. Has literary texts from 1600 to the present with full-text literary criticism from 1998 +. Includes biographical information on authors.
• Literature Resource Center - Contains biographical, bibliographical, and critical content
• MLA International Bibliography - Articles on literature, linguistics, film, and folklore, from all cultures, 1963 to present.
• Arts and Humanities Citation Index - Publication information for articles on topics in the arts and humanities

Multi-disciplinary databases (use these to find scholarly articles in a variety of fields):

• Academic Search Complete
• LexisNexis Academic
• JSTOR all topics, up to 3 to 5 years ago
• Project Muse academic journals in the humanities and social sciences, from the last 5 years

See more databases on the Databases A-Z page.

Related library research guides

• Writing Research Guide
• English and Comparative Literature
• Starting your research

• Google Scholar (click on the "Find FullText@Wellesley" links to access full text of articles or request them via ILL)
• Portal to Asian Internet Resources - PAIR offers scholars, students and the interested public more than six thousand professionally selected, cataloged and annotated online resources. Search by topic or country.
• Voice of the Shuttle: Literatures (Other than English) - General resources for non-English literatures; links to literary websites from a number of countries and regions
• Global Gateway: Library of Congress
• A World of Books from the Library of Congress - Books from many nations, organized by year of publication (1998-2002) and by country
• Literary Resources: Other National Literatures - organized by country/region
• Global Voices Online - search for short stories discussed by global bloggers

Criteria to keep in mind when choosing and using soures:

• Accuracy - Does the author cite her/his sources and are they legitimate?
• Authority - Who wrote the source? Is s/he credible?
• Objectivity - Does the author have a bias - political, religious, commercial or otherwise?
• Currency - Is this information new or based on outdated sources? Can you tell how current it is?

Need help with your works cited page? See our Citing sources guide for links to online style manuals.

Wellesley College Library · Information Services · Alana Kumbier · last modified: November 2, 2009