Portuguese Literature: A Research Guide  Tags: portuguese brazil latin_america  

• MLA Bibliography
• Bibliografía de la Literatura Española desde 1980
• Hispanic American Periodicals Index
• Arts and Humanities Citation Index
• Index to Film Periodicals
• Film Literature Index
• More through the Library's Online Research Resource

Make your life easier: use RefWorks! Refworks is an online database that let's you store bibliographic citations from library catalogs and databases, such as MLA, generate annotated bibliographies and citations in a wide range of citation styles and share bibliographies with classmates and colleagues through RefShare.

There are a number of ways of creating a bibliography. They are:

1. Browse library shelves--The Library is organized in the Dewey call number system. The Library's holdings for Portguese literature and literary criticism is split between the Modern Languages and Linguistics Library and the Main Stacks. For materials relating to Brazil, go to 869.9 or 016.8 and for Portugual, go to 869.0 or 016.8.

2. Turn to bibliographies in recent books. Authors writing literary criticism tend to include exhaustive bibliographies at the end of the book. Make sure to skim the introduction to see if the author gives an overview of the state of the field.

3. Consult a recent US dissertation (since 1997) in Proquests Digital Dissertations. Dissertations are excellent sources for bibliography, as doctoral candidates need to summarise the scholarly literature in their field.

4. Search the Library's catalog. The catalog allow you to browse the library's holdings by author, subject or call number--all excellent ways of generating useful citations. For instance, subject searching will bring together the Library's books on a particular subject. Keep in mind the distinction between primary and secondary sources when searching for items. For more on this see the section in this guide called Step 2: Scholarly Resources.

5. Search the Library's online databases (see side box). This is the best way to find articles and books (less so for these).

6. Search print bibliographies for older works of literature and criticism, which are housed either in the Modern Languages and Linguistics Library's reference section or in the Main Stacks in the call number range 016.8.

Locating books and articles entail different methods.

Books
There are three mechanisms of locating copies of books.

Library Catalog--Once you have a list of books that you want to read, simply search for them in the Library's catalog by title. If this strategy does not produce results, try searching by the author's name.

→Tip: Faculty, graduate students and some undergraduates (in certain dorms) can order library books to be delivered to wither office or dorm. To do so, use the request function in the catalog and select the location option "campus mail." Dorms participating in this service are listed individually. Please note that undergraduates can not receive books using the location "campus mail."

I-Share--If a book is not available in the Library's catalog, then search for it in I-share, a consortium of around 70 libraries in Illinois. To order an book from I-share follow the tip above.

Interlibrary Loan--If neither the UIUC library, nor any in I-share own the book you want, then order it through Interlibrary Loan.

Articles
There are a three ways of locating articles.

Online databases--Some online databases provide full-text articles, especially:
JSTOR
Project Muse
Periodicals Archive Online

Library catalog
Library Catalog--search for articles by journal title in the Library's catalog. The Modern Languages and Linguistics Library houses current journals and in some cases has 5-years' worth of holdings. Older journals are in the Main Stacks or Oak St. Remote Storage.

→Tip: You cannot order copies of print journals through I-share. To obtain articles in journals that the Libray does not own or that another patron is using, go to Interlibrary Loan.

Interlibrary Loan--used Interlibrary Loan to order articles in journals that the Library does not own. In most cases the article will be sent electronically to your email. Please note that you cannot order articles in journals owned by the Library unless the exact volume that you want is unavailable.