Students in Professor Claudia Rubner's ENGL 151L classes can use this page for help finding sources for their Emma literary essay.
For this assignment, you are tasked with finding literary criticism and essays that analyze and interpret Emma and Jane Austen's writing as well as sources that provide information or analysis about the historical and social context (real-world ideas or events connected to Emma).
Below, you can learn more about some of your options for finding your sources for this assignment, such as:
Refer to Professor Rubner's complete assignment instructions and guidelines in your ENGL 151L course in Blackboard.
You can use books for either the literary criticism portion of your research or the social, cultural, and historical context portion of your research. The library's print and digital reserves collections contain books specially selected for this assignment by Professor Rubner.
Ask for the following print titles in Reserves at the circulation desk at the Bethlehem Mack Library or request digital access to them with our Library to Go service.
Fashion : the definitive history of costume and style by 
The romantic rebellion: romantic versus classic art by Scanned portions of other books selected by your Professor have been made available in the Library's Reserves digital collection in Blackboard. You may already have access to them through your list of current courses, but if not you can request access through Library to Go.
To review the search process for finding other books in the library's collection which may be useful for you, see both the Books and Finding eBooks pages of this research guide.
During class, your librarian demonstrated searches in these library databases, which contain literary criticism, critical essays, and biographical information for Emma and Jane Austen:
and this database and search tool, which you can use for both aspects of your research:
These search tips and suggestions might help you as you work in the above databases:
Keywords
Try different combinations of keywords. Group keywords that represent one idea or phrases “inside quotation marks.” Combine separate ideas and search keywords with AND/OR connections. Examples: socioeconomics and marriage, “marriage plot”, “patriarchal society” and marriage and “regency period”
Results filters
Apply the following filters, if they are available and help your search:
Full-text*
Scholarly / Peer-Reviewed
Source or Document Type
Date or Publication Date
Subject (tags)
There may be others that will be useful to you, depending on the database you are using.
Sorting results
Sort results by relevancy or publication date, depending on which is more important to you.
Page tools and other functions
Look for page tools and functions that allow you to see a suggested citation for the source you are viewing, share or email the source, copy and paste permalinks or record urls, or search within the source.
For this assignment, the most appropriate online sources will be provided by:
Look for content that has been written by experts or scholars whose background and qualifications you can verify. The information should be written at an academic level. Original and primary sources are ideal to use, but some secondary sources that analyze, summarize, or restate the original information can also be used if you have determined the author and information is credible. Your librarian especially likes the following online resource for this type of research:
Proceed with caution for other online sources, especially pop and entertainment articles. These tend to include information and content from non-experts and information that is very far removed from its original source or context. These sources are more likely to have inaccuracies and misrepresent information and facts.
