Reference
Materials: Encyclopedias & Handbooks
Encyclopedias
provide background information on your topic and related issues, names of
authorities, important works in the field, and bibliographies on your topics
which may lead you to other resources. Be sure to take time to browse the
shelves! Here are some examples of what you'll find:
| Castilian writers, 1400-1500. Dominguez, F.A. and G.D. Greenia, eds. [REF PN451 .D4 v.286] Contemporary Spanish American poets : A bibliography of primary and secondary sources. Sefami, J., ed. [REF PQ7084 .S4 1992] Critical survey of poetry. Kason, P.K., ed. [REF PN1021 .C7 2003, v.1-8] Critical survey of poetry: Foreign language series. Magill, F.N., ed. [REF PN1021 .C7 1984] (Dictionary of Literary Biography) Twentieth Century Spanish Poets. [REF PN451 .D43, v. 134] International index to recorded poetry. Hoffman, H.H., ed. [REF PN1022 .H63] Manual de literatura española. Pedraza Jimenez, F.B. and M.R. Caceres, eds. [REF PQ6032 .P4 1980, 1-14] Modern Spanish American poets. First series . Salgado, M.A., ed. [REF PN451 .D4 v.283 ] Modern Spanish American poets. Second series. Salgado, M.A., ed. [REF PN451 .D4 v.290] Poetry criticism. [REF PN1010 .P62, v.1-58] Spanish women writers: A bio-bibliographical source book. Levine, L.G. et al, eds. [REF PQ6055 .S63 1993] Spanish writers on gay and lesbian themes: A bio-critical sourcebook. Foster, D.W., ed. [REF PQ6046.S49 S66 1999] Twentieth-century Spanish poets. Second series. Winfield, J.P., ed. [REF PN451 .D4 v.134] |
Library Catalogs
Bridge: The Bridge Catalog is a database of the books, periodicals, dvds, videos, scores, etc. owned by St. Olaf and Carleton colleges. Note that Bridge does not index individual articles -- you'll have to use one of the databases listed under Indexes: Articles & More to search for articles. The Bridge catalog allows you to search for information by KEYWORD, Subject Heading, Author, or Title. It's most likely that you won't be searching for Author or Title at the very start of your research. Most people start out by just looking for any kind of information on their selected topic. Keep in mind that there is a big difference between KEYWORD searching and Subject Heading searching!
Some Sample Subject Headings :
|
Literature and society -- Spain. National characteristics, Spanish. Poets, Spanish -- Biography. Popular culture -- Spain -- History -- 20th century. Sex role in literature. Spain -- Religion. Spain -- Religious Life And Customs. Spanish American poetry
-- History and criticism. |
Spanish Poetry -- 19th Century -- History And Criticism. Spanish poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism. Spanish poetry -- Classical period, 1500-1700 -- Appreciation. Spanish poetry -- History and criticism. Spanish poetry -- Women authors -- History and criticism. Women -- Spain -- Identity. Women poets, Spanish. |
WorldCat: A catalog that provides records for materials owned by numerous libraries across the country. Keep in mind that if you find a book in WorldCat which you would like to use, but is not owned at St. Olaf or Carleton, you can select the ILL button at the top of the screen to request it through St. Olaf's Interlibrary Loan office.
Anthology of Poetry, by Fred F. Jehle (Professor of Spanish, Indiana University)
Golden Age Spanish Sonnets: This site is maintained by Alix Ingber, a Professor of Spanish at Sweet Briar College. Provides access to over 100 sonnets (in Spanish and English), as well as a bibliography of resources on each of the 16th c. poets whom he features.
Los Poetas: Provides some biographical information on a good number of Spanish poets, as well as other spanish-language poets.
Proyecto Cervantes:An extensive collaborative project by Texas A&M, Universidad de Castilla - La Mancha, and Santander Central Hispano. More than you will ever need to know about Cervantes, his works (most available online), and his life.
Useful Article Databases
| These databases are not freely available to the general public and cannot be accessed via Google or other search engine searches. They have been made available to St. Olaf students through subscription, and therefore can be accessed from any on-campus computer. Off-campus uses will need to set up a Proxy Server to access these resources. Directions for this are found at IIT's Configurating a Proxy Server page. |
| Academic Search Premier: An inter-disciplinary database that is fairly easy to use and provides the full-text to some of the articles it cites. Because it provides citations relevant to most subject areas, Academic Search Premier is a very large database. Regardless of what topic you are researching, its always a good idea to search for articles, chapters, or entire books in this databse. • Partial full-text: full-text to some articles is provided while only a citation and abstract are provided for other articles. Arts & Humanities Citation Index: Arts & Humanities Citation Index is a multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities. It indexes 1,100 journals in the arts and humanities, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 7,000 major science and social science journals. • No full-text - citations only. GenderWatch: A full-text collection of international journals, magazines, newsletters, regional publications, special reports and conference proceedings devoted to women's and gender issues. • Partial full-text. MLA International Bibliography: The major index to literature journals. Also covers dissertations, proceedings, and articles in books. Subjects include literature, folklore, languages, and linguistics. Covers 1963-present. • No full-text - citations only. JSTOR: Excellent source of full-text scholarly academic journals up to the last 3-5 years. Searches may be conducted by discipline. • Full-text. Project Muse: An index to full text journals published by scholarly publishers. Search with "All fields except text" to focus the inquiry. • Full-text. WorldCat: A catalog that provides records for materials owned by numerous libraries across the country. If you are working in advance of a deadline, you may find valuable material by searching WorldCat and request through our Interlibrary Loan Office. • No full-text - citations only. Consulta: Entirely Spanish database with over 100 reference titles, more than 60 full-text journals, and over 1,000 primary source documents. |
When searching Google: Remeber to try an Advanced Search. In the Advanced Search page, you can limit your results to a specific domain or exclude results from a specific domain. You may want results that come only from a .edu site, for example. Or you may want results that come from any domain except .com. Warning: keep in mind that just because a web page exists on a .edu server, it is not necessarily accurate! Colleges and university servers host a lot of information, much of which is not realiable.
Google
Scholar <www.scholar.google.com>
This is a new web service, launched by Google in the fall of 2004. It is a free
database of peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical
reports from broad areas of research. It gets its results from a variety of
undisclosed academic publishers and professional societies. Google Scholar will
retrieve results that the traditional Google search engine will not, so it is
definitely worth searching. Beware:
it is likely that some results will lead you to a page suggesting you can get
"full-text" access to the article. You may find that if you click
on the "full-text" link, you'll be denied access, prompted for a UserName
and Password (which you don't have), or asked to submit a credit card number.
When this happens, be sure to check the Bridge catalog for the journal in which
the article appears! We may have it here in the library already. If not, we
can try to get it for you through Interlibrary Loan, which is free.
Think critically about the information you find. Be aware of where the information you find has come from: who wrote it? who posted it on the web? does it cite its references? If you cannot decipher who wrote the web page and what his/her credentials are, treat the information very sceptically - it may not be accurate! Evaluate Internet resources critically before using them in your research. Consider the following criteria:
MLA Citation Style
Proper MLA citation style is defined by the Modern Language Association. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Sixth Edition explains and provides examples of the many rules pertaining to MLA style. The handbook also addresses the mechanics of writing, such as punctuation and quotation.
Rolvaag Library has 2 copies of the MLA Handbook in the Reference Room and 1 copy on the Ready Reference shelf (near the Reference Desk). All copies have the call # LB2369 .G53 2003.
The MLA's website provides some information on its citation
style at Frequently Asked Questions About
MLA Style. It also provides a helpful page on how to cite
electronic materials in a Works-Cited list.
Prepared
by Natalie Wall (walln@stolaf.edu)
Updated on March 10, 2005