Databases:

• Blooms Literary Reference Online Do a simple search of your work or author and skim results

• Literature Resource Center (New!) Do a simple search of your work or author. Use the filters on the right-hand side to add keywords or narrow by subject or other.

• JSTOR Do an advanced search and limit your results to "articles." Do a keyword search of your work or author. Narrow results by adding keywords.

• Ebsco Literary Reference Center Do a simple search of your work or author. Use filters on the left-hand side to select "Literary Criticism." Add keywords if necessary to narrow your results.

Database Searching Tips:

• Use basic or advanced search

• The more words you use, the LESS results you will get - take out some keywords to get to the bigger idea. You may even try to just search the title of the work to browse the available essays.

• Do not ask a database a question like Google - use specific keywords.

• Use boolean search terms AND, OR, NOT to string together keywords and synonyms. (Note that most databases and search engines automatically combine terms with AND.

• Use PHRASE SEARCHING - use quotation marks (i.e. "public assistance") to keep the words together in the search, otherwise the database will search for EACH word separately.

• Use TRUNCATION - to make sure you get all the results - econ* - will give you all the suffixes after econ - economics, economy, etc.

• You can filter your results (i.e. date, type of article etc.).