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- Click here to search for books and media!This link will lead to an advanced search, so you can use as many or as few key terms as you want. For help with advanced searching, see our tutorial.
Can't find the book or article you want? Try Interlibrary Loan (ILL)! We also have an ILL FAQ for more info!
Find Background Information
General Background Sources:
- Credo Reference Academic Core This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive collection of subject encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, and reference handbooks. Also included are short reference videos and high-resolution images. Useful background information source.
- Oxford Reference Online: Premium This link opens in a new windowA comprehensive collection of scholarly encyclopedias and dictionaries published by Oxford University Press. A useful background information source for starting your research. Simultaneous user limit: 5.
- Britannica Academic This link opens in a new windowProvides access to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, an interactive world atlas, a world data analyst tool, images, timelines, videos, and primary sources.
Discipline-Specific Background Sources:
Oxford Encyclopedia of American LiteratureCall Number: Online and Reference Main Level PS21.E537 2004ISBN: 0195156536Publication Date: 2004
Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature by Call Number: OnlineISBN: 0195169212Publication Date: 2006
- Biography In Context This link opens in a new windowBiographical articles from reference sources, journals, and magazines. Contains images, video, and audio files, as well as primary source material.
- Biography Reference Center This link opens in a new windowBiographical articles from reference sources such as American National Biography and Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography.
Use Additional Online Resources
Primary Sources
- Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800 This link opens in a new windowA primary source collection of books, pamphlets, and broadsides listed in the bibliography compiled by Charles Evans and Roger Bristol's Supplement.
- Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819 This link opens in a new windowA primary source collection of books, pamphlets, and broadsides listed in the bibliography compiled by Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker.
- Early English Books Online This link opens in a new windowA primary source collection containing digital facsimile page images of virtually every work printed in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and British North America and works in English printed elsewhere from 1473-1700.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new windowA primary source collection containing digitized books, pamphlets, broadsides, and ephemera printed in the United Kingdom and the Americas between 1701 and 1800. Based on the English Short Title Catalogue.
- Empire Online This link opens in a new window
Printed and visual primary source materials for the study of ‘Empire” and its theories, practices, and consequences. Also Includes secondary sources such as scholarly essays, maps, and an interactive chronology.
- Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new windowDatabase of digitized primary sources from the nineteenth century, curated by an international team of scholars and culled from the collections of the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the British Library, and other major repositories. Contains photographs, books, manuscripts, maps, letters, government documents, journals, and newspapers.
Find Rhetoric and Composition Resources
For much more information on how rhetoric and composition are being taught at Fairfield University, check out the website for the Core Writing team! That page also contains specific ENGL 1001 information like learning outcomes and threshold concepts.
You can view two of their textbooks here:
Bad Ideas About Writing by Call Number: Online
Rhet/Comp Open Resources
- CompPile"CompPile allows ready reference to the published scholarship in post-secondary composition and rhetoric from 1939 to the present. Its coverage of work from 1939 to 1999 is especially comprehensive."
- Silva Rhetoricae"A guide to the terms of classical and renaissance rhetoric."
- WAC Clearinghouse"The Clearinghouse is widely regarded as the leading Web site supporting the use of writing and speaking in courses across the curriculum."
- Writing Spaces"An open textbook project for college-level writing studies courses."
Rhet/Comp Key Databases
- Communication & Mass Media Complete This link opens in a new windowOffers full-text and indexing for journals covering communication, mass media, and other related fields.
- ERIC This link opens in a new windowProvides coverage of journal articles, conferences, meetings, government documents, dissertations, reports, books, and more in education and related fields. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowProduced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the MLA International Bibliography is the definitive resource for the study of language, literature, film, and other related fields. It includes access to journal articles, books, and more.
- Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Full-text scholarly content from journals and books, covering the humanities and social sciences.
Rhet/Comp Key Journals
Cite Your Sources
Working on a big project and need help managing your citations? Try Zotero! Zotero is a citation manager that connects with your browser to save full text, organize sources, and create citations. Click the logo to see more info!
Find Other Resources in the Academic Commons
The Library isn't the only resource available to you! The following departments are housed in the Library, but provide different services than the Librarians do:
- The Office of Accessibility
- The Fredrickson Family Innovation Lab
- Global Fairfield
- The ITS Help Desk
- The Math Center
- The Science Center
- The Writing Center
Course Guides in this Subject
English Course Guides
Below is a list of this semester's Course Guides for this subject:
