Finding Criticism and Reviews
Distinguishing between Book Reviews and Literary Criticism
The simplest criterion for distinguishing book reviews from literary criticism is the time of publication of the review/critical article compared to the original publication date of the book. Book reviews are written around the time the book was originally published; literary criticism appears in later years. For example, reviews of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby that appeared in 1925 or 1926 (right after the novel was published) are book reviews, while literary criticism about the novel continues to be written today. The MLA International Bibliography is an important index of literary criticism.
Finding Criticism of Individual Short Stories
- Twentieth-Century Short Story ExplicationCall Number: Shelved together in A D White Library, Uris Library at Z 5917 .S5 W18 and Z 5917 .S5 W812This first volume is subtitled Interpretations, 1900-1975, of Short Fiction Since 1800. Eleven additional volumes index story criticism from 1976-1988 and 1989-2000 "[New Series"].
An indispensable index of criticism of individual short stories published in magazines, journals, and elsewhere.
Finding Criticism Using Periodical Databases
Periodical databases identify and locate articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Many database records link to the full text of the articles indexed.
- MLA International Bibliography. (Modern Language Association)[Restricted to Cornell]
The 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 screened, and entries for books are included. Entries appear both for collections of essays and for their contents. - Academic Search Premier[Restricted to Cornell]
A general periodical database that provides citations and abstracts for articles from over 4,100 journals and includes full text from over 3,170 journals. You can limit your search to peer-reviewed articles (scholarly articles). - Google Scholar[Open access]
Search Google Scholar for literary criticism. It's best to put your author's name and your short story title each in quotes to screen out the bulk of the scientific articles that appear otherwise. - HAPI Online (Hispanic American Periodicals Index)[Restricted to Cornell]
Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, University of California.
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, HAPI Online contains complete bibliographic citations to articles, book reviews, documents, original literary works and other materials appearing in more than 500 key social science and humanities journals published throughout the world. Many citations are linked to the full text of the article. - Project MUSE[Restricted to Cornell]
Searchable database of scholarly, full-text journal articles published by Johns Hopkins University Press and other university presses in the humanities, social sciences, and mathematics. Covers literature and criticism. - ProQuest Research Library[Restricted to Cornell]
Indexes and abstracts thousands of periodicals, covering general interest magazines and scholarly journals in the social sciences, humanities and sciences. Full text of many articles is provided. You can limit your search to peer-reviewed articles (scholarly articles).
