• Search Cornell

Research Guide for English 158: Chicana Feminist Literature
http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/eng158_vigil.html

Developing a Search Strategy

Search strategy is a library term for the process of finding information in a logical, step-by-step manner. Using a search strategy insures that you will find the information and materials you need as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Research Steps:

1. Choose your topic
2. Find background information
3. Find books on your topic
4. Find periodical articles
5. Find networked resources or relevant Web sites
6. Evaluate your sources
7. Cite your sources
   

For more information about library research strategy and using library resources, go to Research Strategy: a tutorial -- an online, hypertext guide to library research that is a part of Library Gateway Help.

Back to Top

---

Feminism on the Border: Chicana Gender Politics and Literature
Sonia Saldívar-Hull
Berkeley : University of California Press, c2000
Olin Library PS374.M4837 S25x 2000

Saldívar-Hull argues for a feminism that transcends national borders and ethnic identities. Grounding her work in an analysis of the novels and short stories of three Chicana writers--Gloria Anzalda, Sandra Cisneros, and Helena Maria Viramontes--the author examines a range of Chicana feminist writing from several disciplines, which she collects under the term "feminism on the border." By comparing and defining literary and national borders, she presents the voices of these and other Chicana writers in order to show their connection to feminist literature and to women of color in the United States. This book provides one of the most comprehensive accounts of Chicana feminist writing available.


Chicana (W)rites: On Word and Film
M. Herrera-Sobek and H.M. Viramontes, eds.
Olin Library PS508.M4 C56x 1995

The strength, beauty, and vigor of Chicana creative writing and filmmaking are analyzed in this anthology of work presented at a conference at the University of California at Irvine. Sixteen authors challenge existing canons by redefining and amplifying the conceptualization of what "literature" is or ought to be. Contributors include Angie Chabram, Sandra Cisneros, Erlinda Gonzáles-Berry, Frances Salomé España, Demetria Martínez, Elizabeth J. Ordóñez, Mary Helen Ponce, Lourdes Portillo, Elba Rosario Sánchez, and Bernice Zamora.


U.S. Latino Literature: A Critical Guide for Students and Teachers
H. Augenbraum & M.F. Olmos, eds. for the Mercantile Library of New York
Olin Library PS153 .H56 U7 2000

This book contains full chapters by various critics on leading Latino/a authors and their best-known works.


Chicano literature: A Reference Guide
J.A. Martinez and F.A. Lomeli, eds. (1985)
Olin Library Reference PS153.M4 C53

This guide provides an alphabetical arrangement of entries on major Chicano authors and important topics in the study of Chicano literature since 1848. Each author entry includes brief biographic information, a discussion of major works, a bibliography of the author's writings, and sources of criticism.


New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage
A.S. Knippling, ed.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996
Olin Library Reference: PS153 .M56 N53 1996

A comprehensive introduction to the contributions of immigrants to the post-World War II literature of the United States. The book is organized into sections devoted to Asian American, Caribbean American, European American, and Latin American literatures, with individual chapters treating such previously neglected groups as Pakistani Americans, Korean Americans, and Finnish Americans. Each of the 22 chapters on individual immigrant literatures gives basic information about the ethnic group, its culture, and its immigrant history in the United States, which with the notes and a comprehensive bibliography results in a concise reference chapter on that particular group's contribution to U.S. literature. Second, each chapter contains expert critical and interpretive essays on the dominant concerns, major authors, early and recent works, and prevailing genres of each group, satisfying the scholar's need for critical and contextual perspective.


The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature
Claire Buck, ed.
New York: Prentice Hall, c. 1992
Olin Reference PN471 B65 1992


Brings together information about literary writing by women worldwide from all periods. A series of preliminary essays provide historical and geographical overviews, as well as an introduction to critical approaches. The alphabetical reference section spans works and authors from antiquity to the present day. Does not include bibliographies.


Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature (2nd Edition)
G. Perkins, B. Perkins, & P. Leininger, eds.
Uris Library Reference PS21 .B46 2002

This work consists of entries on titles, characters, authors, genres, historical people, historical events, and literary movements. Title entries include brief synopses and a short summation of a work's critical reception. Biographical entries include dates, a listing of works, a brief biographical sketch, a summary of critical opinion, and a list of further resources.


The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English
Lorna Sage, ed.; advisory editors, Germaine Greer, Elaine Showalter.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999
Olin Reference + PR111 C36x 1999


Covers authors, concepts, and works relevant to women's writing for an English-speaking audience. Meant for quick reference, this alphabetically arranged volume does not contain bibliographies or chronologies. Signed entries average ca. 200 - 300 words. Illustrated.


Encyclopedia of Feminist Literary Theory
Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace, ed.
New York: Garland, 1997
Olin Ref PN98 W64 E53x 1997 +


Contains signed, descriptive articles on the people (e.g., Anzaldua, Moraga, Castellanos) and concepts (e.g., Chicana Theory, Identity Politics, Language) that map the constellation of social, political, and cultural ideas constructing the field of feminist literary theory. Each article includes a brief bibliography. Indexed.

Networked

Literature Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI : Gale Group.

A complete literature database combining biographical, bibliographical, and contextual information on authors and their works (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, and journalism). Draws from Gale Group's core literary databases, including Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of Literary Biography, and Contemporary Literary Criticism. Provides additional search capability for Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature and Gale Literary Index.

 

Literature Online (LION). Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey


A full-text collection of poetry, drama, and prose with complementary references sources. Full-text articles from literary journals and biographical information on widely studied authors.

 

General Interest and Reference

• Encyclopædia Britannica Online
• Oxford Reference Online
• Columbia Encyclopedia
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Merriam-Webster Online
• Roget's Thesaurus
• Language Tools

 

Back to Top

---

Finding Books

• About the CU Library Catalog
  The Cornell University Library Catalog includes the holdings of 19 Cornell University libraries. (The Weill Cornell Medical Library, located in New York City, has a separate catalog.) The catalog contains records for books, computer files, government documents, manuscripts and archives, maps, musical scores, periodicals, serials, sound recordings, and visual materials received and cataloged since 1973. There are also records for most pre-1973 items, and for items that are on order or in process.

• CU Library Catalog Help Pages
  
  
• When to Check the Card Catalog
  Some materials in the humanities and social sciences acquired prior to 1973 have records that have not yet been converted to digital form. Access to these records is through the card catalog located in the Lower Level of Olin Library. The card catalog contains cards for authors, titles, and subjects that are interfiled alphabetically.

   

• Understanding Library of Congress Call Numbers

• Library of Congress Classification
  The Cornell University Library uses Library of Congress subject headings as the standard for subject searching. Unlike searching by keyword, where any term or wording of a topic can be entered into the computer, subject searching requires you to use the exact wording of an official Library of Congress subject heading in order to retrieve search results.

• Library Catalogs Worldwide
  Use other online catalogs to find materials not in the CU Library Catalog.

• Interlibrary Loan Services
  Use ILLiad (InterLibrary Loan Internet Accessible Database) to borrow materials from other libraries.

• Borrow Direct
  A new rapid book request and delivery system that enables Cornell faculty, staff, and students to search the combined library catalogs of Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton and Yale, and directly request expedited delivery of circulating items.

   

  Library of Congress Subject Headings for this class:

  American fiction--Mexican American authors--History and criticism
  American literature--Mexican American authors--History and criticism.
  American fiction--Mexican-American Border Region--History and criticism
  Feminism and literature--United States--History--20th century
  Mexican American women--Intellectual life
  Mexican-American Border Region in literature
  Mexican American women in literature

---

Finding Articles

Indexes, Abstracts, and E-Journals

Periodical indexes and abstracts are resources that identify and locate articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Increasingly, indexes are available as online databases that will often provide access to the full text of the articles.

Find Databases provides access to over 1000 online indexes and abstracts, almanacs, catalogs, dictionaries, directories, and encyclopedias. Entries for these resources provide descriptive information, dates of coverage, and links to the databases. You can find databases in your areas of interest by either searching by title or keyword or browsing through the subject menus.

All of the resources in Find Databases can also be found in and accessed through the CU Library Catalog.

Find Articles allows you to search for journal article citations in more than one database simultaneously. In many cases, these citations will provide links directly to online full text of the articles themselves.

Note: The number of databases available for simultaneous searching is a selective subset of the number of resources available in Find Databases.

Finding Periodicals and Periodical Articles

 

Electronic Periodical Indexes - Multidisciplinary

Periodical Abstracts (ProQuest)
Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International

Indexes and abstracts approximately 2000 general interest magazines and scholarly journals. It also includes citations and abstracts to selected television and radio programs. Many of the articles found by searching in this database are available in full text electronic formats. Pull down menus allow you to customize your searches. Also included is a limit for peer-reviewed articles (scholarly articles).


LexisNexis Academic
Dayton, Ohio: Lexis-Nexis

LexisNexis Academic provides access to full-text documents from over 5,900 news, business, legal, medical, and reference publications, including national and regional newspapers, wire services, broadcast transcripts, international news, and non-English language sources; U.S. federal and state case law, codes, regulations, legal news, law reviews, and international legal information; Shepard's® Citations for all U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1789; and business news journals, company financial information, SEC filings and reports, and industry and market news.

 

Electronic Periodical Indexes - Special Subject

MLA. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1963 to date.

MLA bibliography is the largest and most comprehensive database covering scholarship in the modern languages, linguistics, literature, folklore, and drama, including film, opera, radio, television and theater. Literary criticism and literary theory are covered extensively. Approximately 4,000 journals and series are indexed.

 

GenderWatch. Stamford, CT : SoftLine Information.

GenderWatch is a full text database of publications that focus on the impact of gender across a broad spectrum of subject areas (including literature). The database provides in-depth coverage of the subjects that are uniquely central to women's lives, including family, childbrith, birth control, daycare, domestic abuse, work and the workplace, sexual harassment, aging, aging parents, body image, eating disorders and social and societal roles.

 

Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI). Los Angeles, UCLA Latin American Center Publications, University of California.

HAPI Online contains complete bibliographic citations to articles, book reviews, documents, original literary works and other materials appearing in more than 400 key social science and humanities journals published throughout the world. Contains authoritative, worldwide information about Central and South America, Mexico, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region and Hispanics in the United States. From analyses of current political, economic, and social issues to unique coverage of Latin American arts and letters.

 

Chicano Database. Mountain View, CA : Research Libraries Group.

Bibliographic materials on Mexican-American topics 1967 to the present. Scope expanded 1992 to include the broader Latino experience, including Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and Central American immigrants.

 

Alternative Press Index. Baltimore, MD: Alternative Press Center.

Indexes journals covering cultural, economic, political, and social change. Coverage is international and interdisciplinary, with citations drawn from alternative, radical, and left periodicals, newspapers and magazines. Includes selected abstracts from research journals. Subjects covered include anarchism, democracy, ecology, feminism, gay and lesbian issues, indigenous peoples, labor, national liberation, and socialism.

 

Ethnic NewsWatch. Stamford, CT : Softline Information, Inc, 1960 to date.

A full-text collection of 240+ newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press. Designed to provide the "other side of the story," Ethnic NewsWatch offers additional viewpoints from those proffered by the mainstream press.

Back to Top

---

Internet Resources

Portals, Search Engines, and Subject Guides

Use web portals, search engines, or Internet subject guides to find resources or sites on the World Wide Web on your topic. Search Engines are software programs that allow you to search the contents of web pages and Subject Guides are web pages that use menus and lists to sort and classify web sites.

Question and evaluate the information that you find on web pages. As you would do with books and journal articles, look to see who is responsible for producing the web page or site that you are accessing. How objective is the information? How accurate or truthful? How authoritative? Go to the Evaluating Sources section of this page for more information on how to assess the web sites you have accessed.

Selected Web Sites for this class:

Voices from the Gaps
(University of Minnesota)

Making Face, Making Soul: A Chicana Feminist Website

American Women
Library of Congress Resources for the Study of Women's History & Culture

Back to Top

---

Evaluating Sources

Evaluating the sources you find is a crucial step in the process of library research. The questions you ask about books, periodical articles, or multimedia sources are similar whether you're looking at a citation to the item or have the item in hand.

How to Critically Analyze Information Sources
Lists some of the critical questions you should ask when you consider the appropriateness of a particular book, article, media resource, or Web site for your research.

Distinguishing Scholarly from Non-Scholarly Periodicals: A Checklist of Criteria
Shows how to evaluate periodicals by looking at their format, intended audience, and appearance.

Evaluating Web Resources
Lists ways to analyze the Web sites you find.

Evaluating Web Sites: Criteria and Tools
See this page for additional suggestions specific to Web sites.

Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Sites
Offers a table of suggestions.

How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography

Back to Top

---

Citing Sources

APA citation style (American Pyschological Association) Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.) Africana, Hotel, Management, Olin, and Uris Libraries BF 76.7 .P83x 2001x (located at the Reference Desks) Also in ILR and Mann Reference at BF 76.7 .A51 2001. APA citation style (CUL Gateway Help pages) APA Reference Examples for Electronic Source Materials (Excerpted from the 5th edition of the Publication Manual) APAStyle.org (APA's web site)

MLA citation style (Modern Language Association) MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6th ed.) Olin and Uris Libraries Z253 .M68 2003 (located at the Reference Desks) MLA citation style (CUL Gateway Help pages) MLA Style (MLA's web site)

---

Research and Reference Help

• Library Gateway Help

• CU Library Catalog Help

• 
• Reference Desk Directory

• Reference Desk Schedules in Olin and Uris Libraries
  • Olin Library Reference phone number: 255-4144

  • Uris Library Reference phone number: 255-2339

Back to Top

---

Feedback

Please send us your comments and suggestions about the instruction session and this reference guide. Thank you.

---

March 17, 2004
Ida Martinez, im58@cornell.edu
Reference Librarian

Olin and Uris Libraries, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853
Information and reference: 607-255-4144, okuref@cornell.edu
Circulation: (Olin) 607-255-4245, (Uris) 607-255-3537, okucirc@cornell.edu