What You Need to Know

Kinds of Information Available

The Internet is a good place to find both primary, secondary,  and tertiary materials. It contains both free information and paid-subscription  resources.

• Primary documents are electronic copies of the literature  itself, including fiction and nonfiction, poems, diaries, journals, essays,  etc. Usually electronic texts are merely electronic versions of works that  are in the public domain, that is, works that were originally published before  1926, on which the copyright has expired. There are often several versions  of major works available; electronic texts may vary widely in content, in  electronic format, and in the accuracy of electronic text, its faithfulness  to the original print document and the faithfulness of that print document  to the original text.
• Secondary documents in literature are literary criticism,  works about the primary texts, their form, meaning, and context. Students  read literary criticism to better understand the meaning and significance  of a given text to a variety of readers, past and present. Some literary  criticism is in the public domain, by virtue of its age, or is made public  by permission of its author; much of it is available only in subscription  databases.
• Tertiary documents are encyclopedias. Students read  encyclopedias to gain background about the author and his or her time position  in literature, history, culture or geography. There are several free encyclopedias  available on the Web, including the Encyclopedia Britannicaand the Catholic Encyclopedia , that are directly relevant and useful to students  of literature.
• Subscription Databases are collections, usually containing  chapters of books, articles from periodicals, and speeches or addresses, that are not free. These databases contain valuable current information.  Libraries subscribe to such databases on behalf of their user communities.  Union County College Libraries subscribes to the  Gale Literature Resource Center,  available on campus from the Library Website. Students or faculty wishing  to access this database from home should contact a reference librarian for  instructions.

Evaluation Criteria for Literature (Electronic  Texts)

• Currency: People often think that everything on the  Web is current and up-to date. In fact, most of the electronic texts available  for free on the Web are more than 75 years old. If you are reading a nineteenth  century novel for pleasure, this may not be a problem. If you are using and old version of the dictionary, you will miss all the new words, and all the new meanings for old words, that have evolved in the past 75 years.
• Accuracy: Some electronic text archives (Project Guttenberg, for example)  rely on volunteers typing or scanning documents. Errors may result; the quality of these texts may vary. Many short texts are available on personal web pages composed by students, interest groups, or fans. These should be examined most carefully.
• Selection: Some editions of texts are more desirable than others. If your electronic text is taken from an authorized version, edited by a  known scholar, complete with footnotes, illustrations, the author's or critic's  introduction, etc. it may be a very good version of that text. If it is taken from a cheap reprint that may itself contain errors and omissions, it may not be a version suitable for scholarly use.
• Format: Some electronic texts are available in plain-text. These can be saved to disk and read in notepad on a computer. Or you may take your disk home and print it out. Others are encoded in HTML, SGML, or are Adobe .pdf files. All of these can be read in the Library; if you have difficulty opening an SGML file or a ,pdf file, speak to a reference librarian.
• Electronic book format: Publishers are starting to make some current  books available for electronic book readers. These books are usually not free. For more information about electronic book readers, click on one of these: 

http://www.netlibrary.com

http://www.softbook.com

http://www.glassbook.com

Evaluation Criteria for Literary Criticism

What is criticism? The word criticism in literary criticism does  not mean fault-finding, but rather means careful, detailed, analysis of reading.  The critic may analyze the literature in the light of a political or psychological  theory or a historical/social/cultural context. Often the critic will compare  the work being studied to other literary works, or will note the influence  of various writers on each other's work.

Anyone can have an opinion about literature, and anyone can make a web  page, but all criticism is not equally valid. Particularly, when using a search engine, one is likely to find such things as web pages created by K-12 teachers for their specific assignments, web pages created by other students, web pages created by fans and amateur enthusiasts, and promotional literature from book publishers and movie studios. This information is usually not suitable for academic research. Using such information will not create a strong paper. Plagiarizing from it is an academic offense punishable by a failing grade or worse.

Here's what you should look for:

Books, essays, or periodical articles ABOUT authors or their works, BY  known authors, scholars, or critics.

Book or film reviews BY known authors, scholars, or critics.

Why is it important to use known critics? Many critics are found in the  Literature departments of major universities. They are people who have spent  years studying and writing about literature, usually specializing in particular  periods or literary movements. Such scholars become very expert in the areas of their specialization and will be able to notice and interpret allusive  details that escape the average reader. Articles written by such critics  are likely to be published in scholarly journals ( such as American Literature ), but may occasionally be found in substantial newspapers (such as the New York Times) or in news or commentary magazines (Newsweek or the New Republic). Substantial book reviews can be located in all of the above sources, plus publications written just for this purpose  (such as the New York Review of Books )

How can you tell if an author, scholar, or critic is well-known? Search  the Literature Resource Center, or look the critic up in ContemporaryAuthors. If you can't find the name there, search the New York  Times in print or on the computer, or a magazine index such as Reader's  Guide to Periodical Literature or Periodical Abstracts. If  the critic you are researching is currently working as a university professor,  you may be able to verify his/her qualifications through an Internet search.

Some Good Places to Get Started

Literature Resource Center –Gale Group (available  to UCC community only) http://www.valenj.org/

This database covers not only the information from Contemporary Authors,  and related Gale books, but also gives a list of related web sites for most  authors.

Internet Public Library http://www.ipl.org/ref/ or Digital Librarian http://lii.org/

Here are two librarian-collected directories of useful information on a wide variety of topics. Both are searchable, or you may click through the directory. Literature and literary criticism are found in the Arts and Humanities section of Internet Public Library.

Archives of Electronic Texts (from the Internet Public Library)
http://www.ipl.org/ref/RR/static/hum6700.html

Additional Web Resources

(under construction)

Rutgers University Libraries
http://libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/research_guides/eng_lit/internet.s html#menu4

University of Virginia
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/english.html

Voice of the Shuttle – Main English Literature Page
http://vos.ucsb.edu/shuttle/english.html

Literature and Composition Resources

University of North Carolina
http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-30.html#literature

Resources for Teaching English
http://www.english.upenn.edu/Grad/Teachweb/index.html

University of Michigan Humanities Text Initiative
http://www.hti.umich.edu/

American Verse Project University of Michigan Humanities  Text Initiative
http://www.hti.umich.edu/english/amverse/

English Faculty: we welcome your suggestions for useful  literature sites that are not accessible through the resources listed through  these subject links. Please E-mail suggestions to Susan Bissett (Bissett@ucc.edu)