Gaining Context
In order to make any arguments about a work of literature, it is important to perform credible background research on the writer and the events of the time: historical, social, political and economic contexts.
Try searching the Discovery System (the search box on the Library's homepage) with your selected author or title of the work to gain contextual information. Background information will help dictate future research keywords and questions.
Or, search Reference and Biographical Databases separately.
Reference Databases:
- eBooks (Gale) This link opens in a new window
This link opens in a new window
Content: Gale eBooks offers broad cross-curricular collection of non-fiction titles, supporting science, geography, history, language arts, business and other subjects. Optimized for search and discovery, the Gale eBooks platform enables you to search through multiple nonfiction eBooks within a single search.
Related links: Help
For example, when you click through the writers in this guide, you'll find embedded topic pages from a Library database called Credo Reference for each featured writer. Compare what you read on these Library sources with the writers' respective Wikipedia pages and other free internet sources.
Biographical Databases:
- Biography Reference Bank This link opens in a new windowContent: Offers access to coverage of more than 750,000 individuals, over 90,000 of whom have an associated full-text biography, more than 3.5 million records, links to more than 650,000 related full-text articles, as well as abstracts and images from thousands of periodicals. Also provides access to a searchable collection of more than 35,000 images and substantive narrative profiles averaging 3,000 words in length.
Coverage: 1984-Present
Tutorial: View a tutorial about EBSCO databases
