Home - African-American Literature - Mitchell - LibGuides at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Reference Sources Online

Magill OnLiterature Plus
A definitive online source for editorially reviewed critical analyses. It also includes brief plot summaries of the most studied works in the history of literature.
Literature Criticism Online
A digitized collection of ten Gale series solely comprised of literary criticism. These series include the following topics: contemporary literature, 20th century lit., 19th century lit., Shakespeare, lit. from 1400-1800, classical and medieval lit., poetry, short stories, drama, and children's literature.
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Entries are viewed in a reader embedded in the browser (akin to reading the print version) or can be downloaded as PDF files.
Literature Resource Center - LRC
Identifies biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every age and literary discipline. Coverage of more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers, with in-depth coverage of 2,500 of the most-studied authors.
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This database only allows 4 simultaneous users.
Gale Virtual Reference Library
Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. Select Literature from the Subject list to search and browse literature reference sources.

Citing Your Sources

Documenting your sources is a must for credible research. NoodleBib allows you to plug in the information for a book, article (print or online), or image to generate a citation in the desired style, such as APA or MLA.

NoodleBib
Documenting your sources is a must for credible research. NoodleBib allows you to plug in the information for a book, article (print or online), or image to generate a citation in the desired style, such as APA or MLA.

Scholarly Articles

Academic Search Complete
A general periodicals database that makes a great starting point for research.
African-American Review
Features literary criticism on African-American novels.
A Companion to the Modern American Novel (1900-1950)
Click link for Wiley Online Library, then search within the book for the title(s) you're researching. A quick demo search revealed multiple promising-sounding results for each of the three books discussed.
MLA International Bibliography
Indexes literary criticism from 1963 to the present (subjects pre-date 1963).
JSTOR
Searches full-text for back-file articles and reviews in over 130 multi-disciplinary journals. See Project Muse (below) for more recent articles.
Project Muse
Searches full-text in over 150 journals supplied by 10 university presses. Click on the search button to start your search. Muse works well for more recent periodical issues, while JSTOR (see above) reproduces older volumes.

Don't Forget the Books!

The University Library has a veritable treasure trove of critical essays on these three featured books. A keyword search for the title along with the word "criticism" will bring up relevant results, and a subject search of "American literature African American authors History and criticism." can help provide broader context.

Here's 962 results worth of proof: