MVCC Libraries: English Courses: M. Faitell

Handouts - Spring 2023

Assignment Instructions- draft
Assignment from your instructor. This was an early draft; when in doubt, refer to the copy your instructor gives out in class.

Librarian's PowerPoint Presentation
PowerPoint slides used during class on April 21, 2023

How to Search for Literary Criticism

Literary essays like you are working on for this class are different than anything you've probably written before. Here are some tips:

1. Develop a strong working thesis, supported by evidence in your chosen work, first. If you have a firm point and supporting evidence from the work, finding other supporting sources will be MUCH easier. You can change your thesis later, but have something to start with.

2. Search in the right places. Use the databases suggested above! CliffNotes, Schmoop, and other open-web sources are NOT literary criticism! A Works Cited page filled with these types of sources will not earn your instructor's respect.

3. You (probably) won't find anything about your exact topic- and that's ok! It's actually a good thing that no one has written about the exact same thing as you: your idea is unique! Think about your point. Besides an essay of literary criticism that makes your point for you, what else would make good supporting evidence? Some suggestions:

Look for criticism about the author or the author's work as a whole, or about themes across multiple works by the author.
Look for criticism about the theme, imagery, etc. you are writing about.
Look for criticism about the time period when your work was written.
Other supporting evidence might include biographical information about the author, historical information about the place and time the author lived. Check with your instructor to make sure you are not relying too heavily on non-criticsm sources.

4. Do not abandon your topic if your first search attempts don't work. Failed searches are part of the research process. Try another database or different keywords, and ask for help.

5. Ask a librarian. We all love answering questions, and have lots of experience and training searching for sources.

Databases for literary criticism and biographical information:

JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR (Scholarly Journal Archive) is an online archive of core scholarly journals in a wide variety of disciplines. It provides full text articles in back issues of journals from the earliest issues to within a few years of current publication. Users may browse by journal title or discipline, or may search the full-text or citations/abstracts. New issues of existing titles and new titles are added on an ongoing basis.
Literature Resource Center (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Great one-stop database for literary criticism, author biographies, and work overviews.
Humanities Source This link opens in a new window
Can be searched together with MLA International Bibliography.
MLA International Bibliography with Full Text This link opens in a new window
Can be searched together with Humanities Source

Books and Ebooks in the Library Collection:

Need help locating a book on the shelf? Just ask!

Othello by Philip Kolin (Editor)
Call Number: Available Online
ISBN: 0203055659
Publication Date: 2013-01-11
Including twenty-one groundbreaking chapters that examine one of Shakespeare's most complex tragedies. Othello: Critical Essays explores issues of friendship and fealty, love and betrayal, race and gender issues, and much more.
Othello: Character Studies by Nicholas Potter
ISBN: 1283207672
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Othello is a major Shakespearean text, studied widely and often adapted for film and TV and is especially challenging for a multicultural society. Othello lends itself to criticism through discussion of the major characters although this study also focuses on recent criticism's analysis of the characters as"signifiers." The study of the key characters takes the discussion of the text immediately into the central issues of "otherness," gender, race and power.
William Shakespeare's Othello by Harold Bloom (Introduction by)
Call Number: Rome Stacks PR2829 .W47 1987
ISBN: 9780877549352
Publication Date: 1988-01-01
-- Presents the most important 20th-century criticism on major works from The Odyssey through modern literature -- The critical essays reflect a variety of schools of criticism -- Contains critical biographies, notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and an index
Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
Call Number: Utica Stacks PR2894 .G74 2004
ISBN: 9780393050578
Publication Date: 2004-09-17
Stephen Greenblatt, the charismatic Harvard professor who "knows more about Shakespeare than Ben Jonson or the Dark Lady did" (John Leonard, Harper's), has written a biography that enables us to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life; full of drama and pageantry, and also cruelty and danger; could have become the world's greatest playwright.

MLA Citation Resources

Common Citation Generator Mistakes:

Loss of formatting when you copy-paste:
- Hanging indent
- Italics
- Double-spacing
sTRANgE CaPITALiZATion: all-caps, titles not in title case
Extra information that doesn’t belong
Always check the robot's work with the MLA Citation Guide

MVCC Citation Guides
Citation help created by the MVCC Writing Center and MVCC Libraries.

Cite Sources
by Jocelyn Ireland Last Updated Nov 13, 2023 103 views this year

OWL Purdue
The Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University houses writing resources and instructional material, and we provide these as a free service of the Writing Lab at Purdue.