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Lang&Lit: EH419 & 419G -- Milton : Find Articles

This Library Guide directs you to sources of information on the seventeenth-century English author John Milton. The Guide is selective, not comprehensive; the resources selected are representative of their type.

Electronic Resources

There are a number of electronic resources you can use to research your area. The databases on this page are some of the more useful ones.  You can also search for a specific journal using the search box below. If you cannot find what you need, please contact the Subject Specialist using the contact information under the Home tab of this Guide.

Find Journal(s)

Search for Journal Title
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Special Note

NOTE: Due to license agreements, some journals and/or specific issues may not be available in full-text.

Who has access?

If you are faculty, staff, or currently enrolled in classes at Jacksonville State University, you can access the Library's electronic resources from your home computer.

Where can I access these resources?

Access is granted through an authentication application called EZproxy. It is very easy to use, and it allows our users to access our resources from any browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) or service provider (AOL, Mindspring, etc.).

How Do I Access These Resources?

When you're prompted for a student/staff ID and your last name, type in your student/staff number (all numbers, no dashes, no spaces) including ALL leading zeroes and your last name. For example:

  • Student/Staff ID: 123456789
  • Last Name: smith

Click the "Submit" button and you're in! Once you have been authenticated, you can begin searching the resource. If you have any problems accessing the databases, use the contact information in the Help box above to contact us.

Gale Database Search

Primary Databases

Start with these Databases to Locate Articles

To find articles on a topic, you will need to search in databases that index the articles in various journals or, occasionally, in books, on that topic. For research on John Milton and seventeenth-century English literature, you may want to start with the following databases.  For additional databases, redirect to the Supplemental Databases tab of the LibGuide for English Language and Literature: Electronic Databases by Subject.

Important Journals

Milton Quarterly publishes in-depth articles, review essays, and shorter notes and notices about Milton's works, career, literary surroundings, and place in cultural history. In striving to be the most reliable and up-to-date source of information about John Milton, it also furnishes reports on conferences, abstracts of recent scholarship, and book reviews by prominent scholars in the field. While its scholarly standard for submissions is high, it insists upon accessibility from all contributors.

Electronic:

from 03/01/2001 to 1 year ago in Academic Search Premier
from 03/01/2001 to 1 year ago in Literary Reference Center Plus

Front Cover

Milton Studies is published annually by the University of Pittsburgh Press as a forum for Milton scholarship and criticism. The journal defines the literary, intellectual, and historical contexts that impacted Milton by studying the work of his contemporaries, seventeenth century political and religious movements, his influence on other writers, and the history of critical response to his work.

Print: Per PR3579.M5


About SEL

SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 is a quarterly journal of historical and critical studies. It is published quarterly by Rice University in Houston, Texas by The Johns Hopkins University Press. Each issue is devoted to one of four fields, and includes an article reviewing books recently published in that field.

Winter:

English Renaissance

February 15

Spring:

Tudor and Stuart Drama

May 15

Summer:

Restoration and Eighteenth Century

August 15

Autumn:

Nineteenth Century

November 15

Print: Per PR1.S82

Electronic:

from 01/01/1961 to 10/31/2006 in JSTOR
from 01/01/1975 to 12/31/1998 in Academic Search Premier
from 01/01/1975 to 12/31/1998 in Literary Reference Center Plus
from 01/01/1984 to 12/31/1998 in MasterFILE Premier
from 01/01/1985 to 12/31/1998 in MAS Ultra - School Edition
from 01/01/1993 to present in Academic OneFile
from 01/01/1993 to present in Expanded Academic ASAP
from 01/01/1993 to present in General OneFile
from 01/01/1993 to present in InfoTrac Student Edition
from 01/01/1994 to 1 year ago in ProQuest Research Library

The Year's Work in English Studies


Ref PE58.E6 and <http://ywes.oxfordjournals.org/content/by/year> [YWES actually is a periodical, an annual; but Houston Cole Library treats annuals as books rather than periodicals, so this one is cataloged and shelved as a reference book.]

Levels of Database Searching

Levels of electronic database searching

Electronic databases may be searched on three levels:

  • singly (native database)
  • in groups, provided they all are products of the same vendor (database cluster)
  • Gemfinder Discovery Search, which can simul-search multiple databases across different vendor platforms. 

Advantages of searching a native (single) database

  • smaller, more manageable number of search results
  • allows for more precise subject focusing, particularly in discipline-specific databases

Disadvantages of searching a native database

  • fewer search results and therefore fewer article abstracts and full text
  • greater possibility of missing useful articles because they are not published in a journal indexed in the database being searched

Advantages of simul-searching multiple databases by provider

  • more journals included in the search
  • larger number of search results
  • more article abstracts
  • more full text

Disadvantages of simul-searching multiple databases by provider

  • larger number of search results to evaluate
  • repetition of records in search results

Advantages of Gemfinder Discovery Search

  • permits simul-searching databases provided by multiple vendors 
  • includes more books in search results than native databases do
  • useful for finding information on very obscure topics
  • useful for finding a native database launch point when the location of needed information is unknown

Disadvantages of Gemfinder Discovery Search

  • not well suited for searching broad, heavily-researched topics (e.g., George Washington) 
  • number of search results harvested can be overwhelming
  • results harvested may have little or no relevance to the search performed
  • to both reduce results and improve relevance, may require more sophisticated search techniques than needed for native databases                                                                                                                

 

 

 

 

 

Database Cross-Searching

To cross-search EBSCOhost, Gale/Cengage, or JSTOR databases:

1)  Go to the library's Electronic Resources page (http://www.jsu.edu/library/resources/index.html)

2)  Scroll down to Frequently Used Resources

3) Select the database vendor you wish to cross-search  

4) Follow instructions provided by the vendor

 

Beyond Databases

Many authors have groups of admirers who study their works and even form organizations which issue publications devoted to that author.  Yet these publications are so obscure that they are not indexed in any of the major databases.  Here is an area where a basic internet search can be useful, since many of these publications have contents pages, and even selective full text of articles, available online.  The search template is simple.  In the search box of the internet search engine, type the name of the author, within quotation marks, followed by the word "society" (no quotation marks).  For example:

"john cooper powys" society

Whether the author's group calls itself an Association, a Circle, or a Society, within the results list the search brings up should be a link to that group; and connected to that link, access to resources which might otherwise remain unavailable.