Short Fiction

Reference

Bibliographies & Indexes – Examples:

Short Story Index                                                  R 016.8 C771ss
20^th Century Short Story Explication                        R 016.808831 W154t
American Short-Fiction Criticism                              R 016.81309 W439a

Criticism & Biographical Information

Short Fiction:  A Critical Companion                         R 016.81309
Critical Survey of Short Fiction                                 R 809.3 M272c2
Masterplots II:  Short Story Series                           R 809.3 M393m
Reference Guide to Short Fiction                              R 809.3 R259w
Literary Criticism (brown books)                              R 809.04
Dictionary of Literary Biography (blue books)
     American Short-Story Writers                            R 813.09 Am35m
     British & Irish Short-Fiction Writers                     R 823.09 B777 & 823.91409 B777ma
Contemporary Authors                                           R 928.1 C767

Book Review Index
Book Review Digest
New York Times (LexisNexis Academic or Print Index)

Some tips:

• Keyword:  most flexible, most results, relevance is questionable.
• Subject:  more restrictive, categories, works like an index, idea farm.
• Title:  more restrictive, have precise titles, works like an index. 
• Modify/Limit:  limit by language or location.  Ex.:  media center
• If searching for criticism on an author, search in the keyword category and include the words criticism and interpretation.  Ex:  Wallace Stevens criticism interpretation

 Online Databases

Literature Online (Primary & Secondary Resources)

• Use the menu on the left to search for authors, poems (texts), and criticism or browse through complete contents, journals, authors, and clips.
• Use and, or, near, and not.  Default is to search as a phrase!
• Use * on the end of your term for variant endings, and ? for variant spellings.
• Take advantage of “select from a list” to find the “right” words to search by.
• Quick Search will not search full text of poems, does not search as a phrase, and does not allow searching with and, or, near, and not.

Literature Resource Center (Secondary Resources)

• Search “Authors by Type” if you want to see authors in different categories such as lifespan, ethnicity, nationality, genre, etc.
• Pay attention to the tabs – you view your results by type of document (biography, criticism, etc)
• Use the Literary Encyclopedia to look up subjects.
• Use and, or, and not, and quotes for phrase searching.
• Use * on the end of your term for variant endings, and ? for variant spellings.
• Apostrophes and ampersands (&) are not recognized.

MLA 

• Go to the “Advanced Search” tab – this allows you to view your search history.
• Use connectors:  and, or, not.  Default is to search as a phrase!
• Use truncation:  * on the end of your term retrieves variant endings.  Example:  dram* retrieves drama, dramatic, but also dramamine!
• Use wildcards: ? can substitute for one or more letters, and accounts for spelling variations.  Example:  theat?? retrieves theater and theatre; wom?n retrieves woman and women.
• Use the index to find the names of authors and journals.

Humanities Full Text (1983 - present)

• Check the Humanities Full Text box.
• If Smart Search doesn’t pull up relevant results, try Keyword instead.
• Use the Browse button to find how the database uses your term – this is especially useful in searching for authors’ names.
• Limit your search by article type and/or date.
• Use * on the end of your term for variant endings, and ? for variant spellings.

• Use quotations (e.g. "paradise lost") to search for phrases.
• If desired, combine terms by typing Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT, or type terms in separate boxes and use the pull-downs at the left of the search boxes.
• Select fields to search from the right-hand pulldowns. 
• Use truncation (*) on the end of your term to search for plurals or parts of words.
• If needed, use limits to narrow the search results to specific sets of journals or articles.

For help in citing electronic resources, see our online guides.

Check our Journals List to see what journals Bailey Library has.  If we don’t have the journal you need, please check UCA’s catalog, BearCat.  If they don’t have what you need, you can always order your article through interlibrary loan.  See a librarian for more information.