ENG 253: Women's Literature

Searching for articles and other eresources can be tricky. Follow the steps below and discover some best practices and tips, like limiting results to full-text and scholarly texts only. 

To get started, go the the Library homepage: https://www.mssu.edu/library.

If you are off campus, be sure to click "off-campus searching" first & sign in with your MSSU credentials to gain access to eresources. You cannot access articles if you don't do this first. 

1.  In the middle of the screen, click on the tab Search Everything. This will search through many of the Library's ejournals, ebooks, and databases.

2. Supply your keyword(s). Let's start with a jury of her peers.

3. To narrow down your results, you can supply additional terms. Click on Advanced Search.

4. For this example, let's look for a critical analysis. Let's start by placing quotation marks around "A Jury of Her Peers". This will return results using that exact phrase and not an unrelated article just coincidentally using those same words. We will also add the author's name for clarity, which is helpful if the title isn't unique. Finally, let's add some terms that clarify we are looking for an analysis and not book reviews. Placing the expander OR will search for articles or ebooks that may use any one of the terms we've listed in this field. You can play around with this - maybe try adding symbolism or ecocriticism or feminist theory. Then, click on the Search button.

5. You can narrow your results even further by selecting limiters from the left side of the results page. For this example, we want Full Text as this will only return books and articles that are available in their entirety.

You can also select Scholarly which will limit your results to those from peer-reviewed journals only. Note that selecting Scholarly will only return journal articles and will remove all books from your results, so make sure you have looked through your results first.

There are several other options you can select, depending on what you are looking for. You can select a format like print books, place a date range, or even exclude source types like reviews or newspaper articles. 

6. Once you have your results, you can click on a title for a detailed record, citation information, and a PDF or link to the full text. Let's click on the first result - an ebook called On Susan Glaspell's Trifles and 'A Jury of Her Peers'.

7. You can click on the PDF to view this entire book. 

8. You can find several citation styles that will cite the resource for you (but always double-check!)

9. A permalink is a URL that remains unchanged and is therefore preferable for re-locating the resource. Always use this instead of the browser URL for your works cited or to find this book again. 

1.  You can search for print books from the same search you conducted above, but you also have the options to search for just books. From the Library homepage, select the tab Books and eBooks

2. Supply your keyword(s). Let's search again for a jury of her peers.

3. Results that say monograph are print books. Results that say online resource are ebooks typically available through Libby. A green check mark indicates a book that is available that you can check out. Let's click on the first result, Great Short Stories by American Women.

4. The location of this book is Main Collection, which can be found on the 2nd floor of the library. Make note of the call number so you can locate the book you need.

We share lending privileges with other libraries. To find more print material available to you, see the tab "How to Request a Book".