Research & Subject Guides: Creative Writing/Literature: Doing Research

Research

Write what you know but get help with the research.

Whether you need to portray a historical time period, describe a natural habitat, or extrapolate from a current technology, we have sources that can help. Listed here are just some of our online research resources. Always remember that you can contact a librarian for more in-depth help.

Good Places to Start

JSTOR Coverage begins with the first issue of a journal, some as early as the 1600s, and continues up until 1-to-5 years ago. An online archive of core scholarly journals in most fields of study. Comprised of high-resolution, scanned images of journal issues and pages as they were originally designed, printed, and illustrated. Not a source for recent articles.
Literary Encyclopedia 1999-present. Profiles of more than 6000 writers, philosophers and other people; nearly 19,000 works; and 1600 literary and historical topics and events. Updated regularly.
Literature Online (LION) 1280-present. Fulltext. Fully searchable library of more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, from 1280 to the present day. Also contains 333 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources. With all 38 of Shakespeare's plays in dramatised audio recordings and nearly 900 Poets on Screen filmed readings.
Literature Resource Center Date coverage varies. Fulltext. Collection of critical essays, biographies, timelines and other resources. Includes Contemporary Authors Online, Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, and The Dictionary of Literary Biography. Selected material from Literature Criticism and For Students Series.
LitFinder Covers all time periods and contains primary literature content. This includes approximately 140,000 full-text poems, 800,000 poem citations and excerpts, 7,100 full-text short stories and novels, 3,800 full-text essays, 2,000 full-text speeches and 1,700 full-text plays. It also includes biographies, work summaries, photographs and a glossary.
MLA International Bibliograpny 1920s-present. Citations and selected fulltext from over 4,400 journals and 1,000 book publishers. Covers literature, linguistics, folklore, cultural studies, literary theory, film, rhetoric and composition. The definitive resource for modern, peer-reviewed literary criticism.

Digital Libraries and Projects

Chronicling America
Full text of American newspapers from around the country.
Digital Humanities Projects at Stanford
Wide selection of projects showcasing what the digital humanities can do.
Digital Public Library of America
Digitized collections from a variety of libraries covering history, social movements, sports, leisure, and more.
NYPL Digital Collections
From the New York Public Library
Women's Travel Diaries
Historical women's diaries digitized by Duke University.

Historical Research

All SBU History Databases

Gale Primary Sources: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection 1604–1800. Full-text. The newspapers and news pamphlets gathered by the Reverend Charles Burney (1757 - 1817) represent the largest single collection of 17th and 18th century English news media. The Burney Collection provides rare and often unique content for scholarly research into a wide range of political, educational, economic or journalistic study. Digitized from important holdings in the British Library, the collection contains nearly 1 million pages, more than 700 bound volumes and over 1,200 titles, including pamphlets, proclamations, newsbooks and newspapers published in London, the English provinces, Ireland, Scotland, the American colonies, Europe and India.

Cambridge Histories Online Date range varies. Full-Text. Over 300 volumes of the renowned Cambridge Histories series covering History; Economic History; History of Science (including Modern Biological and Earth Sciences and Modern Physical and Mathematical Sciences); Language and Linguistics; Law; Literary Studies; Music; Philosophy; Political and Social Theory; Religious Studies; Theatre Studies and Performing Arts; and Warfare. In addition to substantial sets on American, British and European History, the collection also contains major works on the Histories of Africa, Egypt, India, Iran, Japan, Latin America, Russia, Southeast Asia, Turkey and the 15-volume Cambridge History of China.
Early American Newspapers 1755-1922. Fulltext. More than 135 historic newspapers from all 50 states. Titles include The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison's anti-slavery newspaper; New Orleans Daily Creole, the first African-American newspaper in America; Siwinowe Kesibwi (Shawnee Star), the first newspaper printed wholly in a Native American language; and the Maryland Gazette, the oldest continuously published newspaper in America. Regional newspapers include The New York Herald, Irish World, and Jewish Daily News.

Gale Primary Sources: Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) 1700-1799. Fulltext. Major digital collection consisting of every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom during the 18th century, along with thousands of important works from the Americas. Includes over 180,000 titles (200,000 volumes) - books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and more. Based on the English Short Title Catalogue.

New York Times Historical 1851-3 years ago. Online access to page images and fulltext articles from the New York Times as far back as the first issue.
SBU Libraries Archives & Special Collections

More Research Help

All SBU Library Databases
Graduate Student Toolkit
This guide will give you more tools to conduct research: form using Google Scholar to rare book collections and more.
Research Guides
Pick a subject and find a ready-made collection of links and resources to help you dive in.
Digital Composition, Storytelling & Multimodal Literacy

Creative Writing/Literature

Research

Good Places to Start

Digital Libraries and Projects

Historical Research

More Research Help

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