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ENG 341: Medieval English Literature

A Library Guide to Resources

How to Find Books on a sample topic, "Gender Relations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". For articles, scroll down.

You could try the following search in WorldCat, our library catalogue.

Go to the Description of relevant books and scroll down to the Subjects field. Take note of relevant subject headings. Also take note of relevant keywords that appear other fields of the full record.

Then try an Advanced Search in WorldCat  using keywords found in the Descriptions of relevant books:

Subject vs Keyword search: If you select the Subject index, the resulting books will be entirely devoted to the words you type because it searches the subject field. If you select Keyword, the words you type may be found anywhere in the record including the table of contents, so there may be a chapter devoted to your topic.

Quotation marks: will search for a phrase -- the words must appear together in the order in which you type them.

AND finds all terms (usually used between boxes)

OR finds either term (usually used inside a box, between related terms)

fem* [truncation symbol is *]:  finds any ending -- e.g., female, feminine, feminist, feminism

wom?n [wildcard symbol is ?] : will retrieve women, woman

Useful Subject Headings:

  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
  • Arthurian romances

Useful Keywords:

  • women
  • woman
  • female
  • feminine
  • sex
  • sexual
  • sex role
  • gender

The following search is exactly the same as the Advanced Search above, but all in one box (round brackets replace boxes):

For more help with WorldCat search techniques, see How to do an Advanced Search (also available on the library website under the Catalogue tab).

Inter-library Loans (ILL): How much does it cost?

Students:

  • ILL books are free if available in a Canadian library
  • ILL articles are $3.00 each

Faculty:

  • no charge for ILL requests

Retired faculty:

  • allowed 5 free requests per year
  • If more  than 5 are needed, the requester will be responsible for any fees involved.

How Long do they Take?

  • allow two weeks from when you submit the ILL order, but sometimes they come sooner

Further information (how to make a request) is available here.

How to Find Journal Articles on This Topic

Go to EBSCOhost services and select EBSCOhost Web.  Then choose your database(s). Try the following search and refine your results.  For example, you could limit your results to recently published (in the past 5 years), full text articles in peer reviewed journals.  For more help with EBSCOhost databases, go to the library website and look under the Databases tab.

On the library website, go to the Databases page and select JSTOR. Select the Advanced Search. You can filter (narrow) your results by item type (e.g. Articles), Date of publication, and Language. You can also narrow by subject discipline of the journals, e.g. Language & Literature.  For more help with JSTOR, go to the library website and look under the Databases tab.

Peter Turkstra Library,  Redeemer University , 777 Garner Road East, Ancaster, ON, L9K 1J4, Canada
Circulation Desk Telephone: 905.648.2139 ext. 4266, Email:   library@redeemer.ca