Literary criticism is the evaluation, comparison, analysis, or interpretation of literary works. Criticism may examine the themes in the work, look at the author's writings as a collection, analyze a work through a particular lens or school of thought, or compare works of the same theme, genre, time period, etc.).
NOTE: A book review is different from literary criticism. Book reviews summarize the book and give the reviewer's opinion on whether the book is worth reading. Authors of book reviews can intend them for a general or an academic audience.
Tips for searching the library catalog, OneSearch.
Some books are available in library stacks, and books are shelved by topic, so browsing the area might be of interest once you find one relevant item! Others are available as eBooks. If you have trouble accessing either, do not hesitate to reach out for support.
OneSearch searches many (although not all) of the library's databases. It's a great place to start, but do not be afraid of jumping into individual databases for more comprehensive results.
Remember, each database is like its own store. If I go to HyVee looking for shoes, I will be disappointed. If I know to go to Famous Footwear, however, I'll have lots more options to choose from. HyVee is still a great store, but it's just not the right place to fulfill my need for shoes.
Scholarly articles are often the resources your professors want you to use to inform and support your own writing. It helps to understand why that is the case. It also helps to normalize how difficult they can be to navigate.
Scholarly articles in the Arts and Humanities are set up differently than in the Sciences. Articles may read more like essays, rather than reports on scientific experiments.
In the Humanities, scholars are not conducting experiments on participants but rather are making logical arguments based on the evidence they have researched and analyzed.
In literature, for example, a scholar may be studying a particular novel of an author. In history, a scholar may look at the primary source documents from the time period they are studying.
The following sections are generally included in humanities scholarly articles, although they may not be clearly marked or labeled.
| Abstract | A summary of the research provided at the beginning of the article, although sometimes articles do not have an abstract. |
| Introduction | Provides background information for the topic being studied. The article's thesis will be found in the introduction, and may also include a brief literature review. |
| Discussion/Conclusion | The discussion likely runs through the entire article and is the main component of the article providing analysis, criticism, etc. The conclusion wraps up the article; both sections usually are not labeled. |
| Works Cited | List of sources cited in the article by the author(s). |
Reading Scholarly Articles in the Arts and Humanities by UC Merced Library under license CC BY-NC 4.0 .
