Using MLA Bibliography to Find Sources on an Author
The MLA Bibliography is available from the " Research Databases" page to CSU affiliates (vendor is EBSCO--the explanations on this Web page will work for any library that uses an EBSCO 2.0 interface for MLA). Examples on this page will focus on Shakespeare. There are over 37,000 entries that mention Shakespeare, Shakespeare is a subject in over 35,000 of them. The following gives an overview of how to use the electronic index to identify resources on Shakespeare and his works. As with all research, do your research as far in advance as possible of writing your own project to allow time for Interlibrary Loan requests, recalls of books, and, most importantly, time to read and think about what you find.
Note: the search strategies for this page work for any author included in the MLA Bibliography. Just put in the other author's name or work title(s) in place of the Shakespeare examples.
The default search at CSU is the Advanced Search with three search boxes joined by a menu drop box 
(that can be changed to "or" or "not"). To quickly
identify articles, book chapters, etc. on a particular play, type
the name of the play into the search field in quotation marks, preceded
by DE (this DE, which stands for "descriptor," is not found in the drop-down Select a field menu, you must type it in). For example:
- DE "Love's Labour's Lost"
- DE "Hamlet"
Alternatively, you can type in the name of play and change the drop down search field to: SU Subjects-All or SK Primary Subject Work:
or 
You will get different search results if you use SU instead of SK--SK is more specific (DE is even better, but is not offered in the drop down menu--you can type it in as shown above) and is recommended unless you are doing comparative analysis--in that case SU would be preferable and you would want to eliminate the articles that focus only on your primary work. Identify these by first looking at the search history to see what number has been assigned to the searches, and then not the SK items out in the search box:
The search history then shows (July 31, 2008):
and you will have a list of items that discuss Shakespeare's Hamlet and another work or works.
Hamlet as a subject is found more specifically with: DE "Hamlet" in the default (Select a Field (optional)) field. A search for Hamlet with the drop down menu at "SU Subjects-All" or "SK Primary Subject Work" brings up a more items, with some different entries than those found under DE "Hamlet," but some of them are about other Hamlets: William Faulkner's The Hamlet (1940), Alfred Döblin's Hamlet (1956), the author William Mogford Hamlet, the author Ur-Hamlet, etc.
From the initial search page you may narrow your search before you
even press enter or the "Search" button. If you have already done a search,
return to this page by selecting
. Search options include:
- Search Modes--Boolean/Phrase; find all search terms (Boolean AND); find any search terms (Boolean OR); Apply related words
- Publication Date
- Language (scroll to choose)
- Period (MLA's time periods see explanation here)
- Full Text (not recommended in MLA because there can be so few results, and
makes it so easy to see if something is full text in another CSU database; however, if you are having a very lazy day, the function now actually works in MLA--it didn't before) - Publication Type (Book; Book Article/Chapter; Book Collection; Dissertation Abstract; Journal Article; Website)
- Exclude Dissertations (check box)
- Genre (see examples here; this is a MLA category; other databases using this software have "Document Type")
- Peer Reviewed (check box; not generally needed in MLA)
- Electronic Publication (this means born digital; it is not recommended that you check this box; just because something was born digital does not mean that it is available full text in MLA or that it is available in another CSU database)
Type your search terms in the search box and since this is Shakespeare you are going to want to narrow down your search with a more specific topic. For example:
or
Limiting Searches in MLA
If you want to limit your search to Journal Articles at the beginning of a new search, click on . Publication types are: Book; Book Article/Chapter; Book Collection; Dissertation Abstract; Journal Article; Website. The left example below shows a search limited to journal articles. You can also exclude dissertations from a general search (right example).
You can also limit your search by language of the article by scrolling and selecting your choice:
You may select more than one language; just use the Shift key to select languages next to one another in the alphabet, and the Ctrl key to choose languages that are not sequential:
If you want to confine your search to journal articles after doing your search, narrow your results by selecting Journal Articles from the left-hand side:
; it will highlight your selection in blue like this: 
You can limit by a known journal name in in the database; you can either type in the title of the journal and use the drop down menu box and select SO Journal Title: 
or you use the following terminology in the search box, putting the title within quotation marks: 
. Alternatively, you can find out what the abbreviation for the journal is and do a search within the publication:
To do this, first select 
found at the very top of the page. Type in the name of the periodical: 
and then press the "Browse" button or enter. The display will look like:
Section Focusing on Shakespeare Journals
Select the title you want (checked here) and click the Search button. The MLA search box will then display:
(and will have done a search for it as well). Browse the entire journal or add terms to narrow the search. Note: the abbreviation for a publication can been seen next to the hyperlinked title in a full record in parentheses:
Colorado State University owns Shakespeare Survey (1948- ), Shakespeare-Jahrbuch (varies), Shakespeare Quarterly (most years 1950- and online all years), The Shakespeare Newsletter (most years 1959- ), and Shakespeare Studies (print 1965- and online 1975- ); all of these are indexed in the MLA Bibliography. Check the library catalog SAGE--linked to for the titles in this paragraph--for location and availability. DO NOT limit yourself to these journals only! That would be a major research mistake!
Example Citations in MLA
Example Journal Article citation in MLA:
Click on the hyperlinked title to see the full citation for an item with subject terms, language, etc.
From this full record screen you can do a search for other items by the author, items in the same journal, same subject, period, primary subject author, genre, etc. by clicking on the hyperlink. Other options include printing, e-mail, save the citation, cite (gives bibliographic citation in AMA, APA, Chicago/Turabian--author/date and humanities, MLA and Vancouver/ICMJE style--nevertheless, be sure to check the style manual you are using), export, or add to folder.
With the folder you can create your own mini bibliography. Add citations to the folder from the full and brief record. Keep your list to fewer than 500 or they will be lost.
CSU doesn't own the journal Use of English, so if you were interested in this article you would need to request it from Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Use the
Example Book Chapter citation in MLA:
CSU does own the book that includes the chapter listed above; you can either search the library catalog directly in another browsing window or click on
to find the record for it:
Combining Terms or Concepts in MLA
Combining terms in a search can help you get specific.
Advanced researchers might want to take advantage of the short cuts available by typing in the search box:
- ti=music
- la=English
finds items in English with "music" in the title. You may limit by publication date by typing in DT=, DT<, or DT>:
(or after completing a search, limit per instructions found here).
Short cuts (use two-letter abbreviation only in search box) include (Note: bolded ones most useful):
|
|
|
|
Not listed on drop down menu, but that also work are: DE Descriptors and JN Journal Name.
For example, if you are interested in music in Hamlet (to the point of "music" appearing in the title of the sources), and you need to use recent materials, you can type in three requirements and combine them.
(Note: you can add additional search boxes by clicking on
; maximum of 12 rows.)
Or do the same search in the top search box:
The results are exactly the same. The example below is one of the titles. "Music" is in the title of the chapter, "Hamlet" is one of the subjects, and it is from 2005--or published after 1998.
(This is an example of a title that would not have been found if the Peer Reviewed Box had be checked at the beginning of the search.)
You may also set up an RSS feed, by clicking on the
, found at the top of your search results to receive notification when there are new items for that particular search in the database.
When searching for a title in a language other than English, type the title within quotation marks. This ensures that a non-English word such as "de" or "su" is not interpreted by the database as an advanced search indicator.
Make sure that you carefully evaluate the sources you find--be they articles or books (or Web pages!). When you do a thorough search, you should start reading articles that refer to other articles you have already read (not just articles whose citations you've seen).
-->If your library uses SilverPlatter software for MLA Bibliography, see information on searching it here.
See Searching MLA Bibliography by Subject for additional details on searching MLA.