ENGL 3430-Victorian Literature

Victorian Literature IS NOT a subject heading in the library catalogue.

Try some of the following:

English Drama - 19th century
English Fiction - 19th century
English literature - 19th century

Novelists, English - 19th century
Poets, English - 19th century
Authors, English - 19th century

Also, look for the subheading "criticism and interpretation" after an author's name (if you have entered the author's name as a subject heading, this will retrieve books ABOUT his/her works).

Step 1 - Formulate Keywords

Consider
Author's last name or Title of a work
Topic - a theme, a genre, a historical period, a character's name, a writing style or narrative technique

TIP - browse a thesaurus or a subject heading list in a database if one is available.  Certain databases will have subject headings that may  be critical for your retrieval of relevant information.  For example, in the Library Catalogue, there is no subject heading for Victorian Literature. 

Subject headings do exist for:

   
    English Literature - 19th century
    Novelists - 19th Century

Step 2 - Categorize/choose your keywords/phrases 

Select at least two words.  Each should represent different concepts in your topic.  Combine concepts in a search with AND

Examples:

Dickens AND poverty
Gaskell AND "industrial revolution"
 

Step 3: Refine your search if needed

Limit results by using more specific terms

   "strike" AND Gaskell

Limit results by adding additional search terms to add other concepts

Poverty AND Dickens AND David Copperfield

Limit by types of sources - like peer reviewed journals

Expand a portion of your results by using more search terms with OR

   Example:  (poverty OR poor) AND Dickens

Expand the a search term by truncating if you can: 

   (strik*) to pick up striking strikers, strikes etc)