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CRWR 417 (Kidd Tutorial) Course Research Guide

This is a guide to the library and research materials you may find useful to accomplish the objectives of CRWR 417--Kidd Tutorial.

Finding Creative Work by Subject

Finding a book of fiction or poetry by its author or title is relatively simple; just search the Library Catalog. [Help in catalog searching.]

There are several ways you can find fiction and poetry by its theme, topic, or format.

Using Subject and Genre Headings

Subject headings for fiction are usually standard Library of Congress (LC) subject headings, often with the word "Fiction" or "Poetry" attached as a subheading. Some examples:

Dogs -- Poetry
Family -- Fiction
Nature -- Poetry

There are also some subject headings that describe a type or school of writing, by which the general content of the work is implied:

Ghost stories
Horror tales
Lyric poetry

There is a separate set of headings that are sometimes applied to describe the genre (the form, format, or style) of a work. Genre headings are designed to describe the formal qualities of an item, rather than its subject content. To search genre headings, go to the Library's advanced catalog search and click the "Genre" button. To determine the best genre heading for your search, enter the best terms you can think of and skim the genre heading index, or review the selected list of genre headings maintained by the Online Computer Library Center. Some sample headings are:

Epic literature
Black humor literature
Tall tales
War poetry

The only problem with using subject or genre headings as outlined above is that these headings have only recently begun to be used, and they aren't used in all cases.

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Using Bibliographies

Bibliographies are the best way to search for creative work by its topic, theme, setting, or characters. You can browse for many of them on the fourth floor of Knight Library at Z 5616-Z 5617.

Here are several standard sources for bibliographies:

Fiction Catalog | KNIGHT REFERENCE Z5916 .W6
Allows you to find novels and novelettes by theme, using the index in the back.
Cumulated Fiction Index | KNIGHT Z5916 .F5
Does the same thing that Fiction Catalog does, but for British novels.
Themes and Settings in Fiction: A Bibliography of Bibliographies | KNIGHT Z5916 .H28
Lists bibliographies that list novels and short stories by theme or setting. Doesn't list the novels and short stories themselves, but gives subject access to lists of works via an index in the back of the book. Look your topic up there, then track down the listed bibliographies (either essays or books) and consult them.
Short Story Index | KNIGHT REFERENCE Z 5917 .S5 C62
Lists short stories in collections and periodicals, by subject, author, or title. Covers stories either written in or translated into English. 
Columbia Granger's World of Poetry
Allows you to find poems by subject, title, author, first line, or last line. For every poem there is a list of the anthologies in which the poem is found. Includes biographical information about poets and some commentary on well-known poems. Works best for English-language poems, although some poetry in translation is included.

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Finding Literary Criticism

Literary criticism may be found in books or in journals. To search for journal articles, you will need to use a database, sometimes known as an index. Articles in journals not owned by UO Libraries can easily be obtained from other libraries through Interlibrary Loan.

MLA International Bibliography 
The essential index for critical materials about all literatures (except classical Greek and Roman), languages, folklore, and film. The database provides access to over 1.3 million entries gleaned from essay collections, dissertations, books, and over 6,000 journals. Covers 1926-present. (Does not include book reviews.)
Academic Search Premier 
A multidisciplinary database that indexes more than 8,000 publications, with full text for approximately 4,600. Covers 1965-present.
Contemporary Literary Criticism | KNIGHT REFERENCE PN 771 .C59
Each of the 221 volumes in this series profiles approximately 6-8 novelists, poets, playwrights and other creative and nonfiction writers by providing full-text or excerpted criticism taken from books, magazines, literary reviews, newspapers and scholarly journals. Use the Literary Index to find the volume your work is located in.
Maintained by: Elizabeth Peterson, emp@uoregon.edu
Last Modified: 12/30/2008