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This is an instructional video on how to access the database we will be using in this course.
Before addressing the databases, we need to look at why we are going to use them, and
what we are going to use them for.
First, why do we use the databases? Isn't the Google search engine good enough? If you
plan on going to college, your professors will expect you to find documents that support
your arguments. If those articles come from blogs or other less-than-professional sources,
the professor will most likely reject your sources and you will have to start over. Instead
of quoting the Bloggess' opinion of Shakespeare, you will want to access the virtual database
library to find articles by people whose life work is having an opinion on Shakespeare.
Next, you might ask, What are the databases? The databases are a collection of hundreds
of thousands of articles. Most databases are specialized, which we will come to momentarily.
Our particular interest in the databases is that we are on a hunt for relevant, scholarly
literary criticism.
Now, what is literary criticism? Lit crit for short, is any article or essay that is
considered an examination of thinking as related to literature, or an examination of literature
from various perspectives, including, but not limited to, genre, era, gender, history,
theme, and so on. You can think of "lit crit" as a sort of slow motion debate between authors,
scholars, and students over the last 600 years, or even more.
Now, let's get started. You'll want to go to www.lisd.net. Hover over "Students" towards
the top, or tap "Students" if you're on a touchscreen device. Then, choose "Bookmarks
for Research Secondary."
Log in, as prompted, with your normal course username and password. Scroll down just a
little until you see the blue-titled section, "Gale Databases and ebooks." Click on or tap
the button that will take you to the "Literature Resource Center." The password is "lonestar."
The other databases there are maintained by the same company, Gale, but you would use
them for other purposes than ours, such as a debate, or a current events assignment.
Always go to Advanced Search so that you have more control over your search. Type in the
name of a work, author, or subject, and scroll down the page to adjust the settings. We'll
leave "All Dates" checked, leave the "content type" boxes alone, choose English, and you
should be good.
Click "Search" to go to your results. The tab we want is "Literary Criticism" tab. If
you type in a search term as general as mine, you're going to get an overwhelming amount
of results. To narrow the results, find the yellow rectangle on the far left. Clicking
any of those will significantly narrow your results. If you ever accidentally click the
wrong filter, or want to remove a filter, just click that filter's name under "Remove
limit by".
Now, we've got fourteen articles here instead of 411. I'd call that an improvement. Let's
take this first article and look at some of the features. Notice how the article says
"Full-text." You always want that, or PDF if the option is there. If you click on an
article, the full text will be just a scroll away, and your search term will be highlighted
in red throughout. You can also quickly search an article using the control F or command
F key combo to do a quick "find".
At the bottom of the article, after the author's bibliography, is information I suggest you
put in a document somewhere. This database is kind enough to give you the MLA citation
already done, as well as a stable URL for the article.
This video will always be available on my YouTube channel. You will be finding literary
criticism throughout the rest of the semester, so familiarize yourself with the Literary
Resource Center database.
