?what ' s literary Criticism

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WHAT IS LITERARY CRITICISM?
"Literary criticism" is the evaluation, analysis, or interpretation of literary works. It is usually in the form of a critical essay or extended book review. Criticism may examine a particular literary work, or may look at an author’s writings as a whole, or may compare and contrast works by time period or with other authors.

WHAT IS AN INDEX?
Indexes allow you to do one search covering hundreds or thousands of articles rather than doing numerous searches through individual books, periodicals, and the Internet. Indexes contain citations to articles. Citations include an article’s title, author, page numbers, publication date, and the name of the periodical in which it was published. Many indexes provide full-text copies of the articles they index.

FINDING AN ARTICLE OR BOOK REVIEW
There are many ways to find critical analyses of a book or author:

1. Use a SPECIALIZED index. These focus only on author biographies and literary criticism.

Specialized online indexes offered by the library include:
Literature Resource CenterThis literary reference tool offers full text journal articles, critical essays, reviews, author biographies and links to Web sites. Under "Author Search," enter your author’s name and click on "Search" Click on "Title" to search by title of a work. When your results appear, make a selection from the folder tabs on top, before looking at your results.
Gale Literary Indexincludes entries from 87 Gale Reference works, covering living and deceased writers in fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, journalism, drama, motion pictures, television, and other fields.
Note: For OFF-CAMPUS access, come to the reference desk to get usernames and passwords
Two of many other printed indexes available at the Chabot College Library are: Black Literature Criticism, and Poetry Criticism. These are described in listings below.
2. Use a GENERAL PERIODICAL database. Book, movie and other entertainment reviews or critical essays are routinely published in newspapers, popular magazines, or scholarly journals.
Project Muse offers criticisms and reviews from nearly 200 journal titles in humanities and social sciences including literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies and economics
EbscoHost Academic Search Eliteprovides full-text book, movie, entertainment reviews and criticisms in various magazines and journals. If the review you want is not available online, EbscoHostwill tell you if the library subscribes to the magazine that printed the citation.
Lexis Nexis Academic Universe Lexis-Nexis, by indexing over 200 newspapers, is a good source for reviews going back to 1980. Choose "Guided News Search" tab. At step one, choose "Arts, Sports News" then at step two select "Book, Movie, Music and Play Reviews." Enter your search terms at step three, and then at step four, be sure to select the the pull-down menu to do searches for more than six months back in time. Step five is not necessary unless you want to search a particular publication such as the New York Times.
Alt-PressWatch, Ethnic NewsWatch, GenderWatch If you are having trouble finding book reviews or literary criticisms or want to find more on your less studied author, there are many available in the smaller presses which are found from three databases. Alt-PressWatch comes from the alternative presses, Ethnic NewsWatch from the presses written by and for the ethnic, racial, and native presses across the United States, and GenderWatch comes from feminist, men's studies, gay/lesbian, and other publications dedicated to gender issues.
3. Find information in books in the Library Catalog. The library may have books about a specific author including biographies and/or criticism of his/her works. General books on an author may discuss that author’s style, characters, or use of certain literary themes. Use the index at the back of each book to find comments about a particular work. Use the online book catalog to find out if entire books on your subject are available. Make sure to enter the author as a subject, last name first.
4. Find information on the Internet. Many of the sites on the Web offering movie reviews are listed under "Film Web Sites" below. You can also use a search engine to find reviews. Enclose the title of the movie in quotation marks along with the terms, "movies" and "reviews."