ENGLISH 1B: Nineteenth Century American Consolation Novels

• Literature Resource Center (LRC)
  Indexes biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers by providing access to content of numerous print counterparts including Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, and Dictionary of Literary Biography.
  
• Literature Online
  Includes more than 350,000 works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, 131 full-text literature journals, and other key criticism and reference resources. Includes reference works on literary criticism and biographical information. Go directly to Literature Online - poetry texts, Literature Online - drama texts, Literature Online - prose texts, Literature Online - search authors or Literature Online - Criticism and Reference
  
• Literature Criticism Online
  Contains thousands of essays from the Gale literary criticism books including: Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism (CMLC), Contemporary Literary Criticism (CLC), Drama Criticism (DC), Literature Criticism from 1400-1800 (LC), Poetry Criticism (PC), Shakespearean Criticism (SC), Short Story Criticism (SSC), and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (TCLC).
  

Example:

Topic:  Image of African American women in advertising

potentially relevant disciplines:

African American Studies
Gender and Women's Studies
Ethnic Studies
Media Studies
Psychology
Sociology
Business
etc.

Developing appropriate keywords/search terms is an essential part of research.  First, break your topic into components.  Develop a list of synonyms and alternative terminology for each component.  Think about broader and narrower concepts and word variants.  What words can you exclude?

Topic: Image of African American Women in Advertising

image(s) or stereotyp(es)(ing) or depict(ion) or portray(al)...

african american(s) or black(s) or minorit(y)(ies)

women or gender

advertis(e)(ing) or media

Remember to be creative with your terminology!  More examples:

people of color and environmental activism*
environmental justice
environmental justice and hazardous waste*
environmental equity
environmental discrimination
environmental racism
environmental injustice