The quality of your literary analysis depends on the quality of your sources. Use the CAARP Test to help you choose credible sources.
The Writing Centers at TCC are located on every campus and can help you with your citation and formatting questions. Visit the Writing and Reading Support Canvas page to chat with a tutor, schedule an appointment, and learn more about their services and how they can help.
Literary Research
Citing credible sources that support your thesis statement strengthens your literary analysis paper. You need to use the TCC Library to find this type of information. Fortunately, there are many resources available that are easy to use.
You will look for essays, articles, and books written by experts on your authors and their writing.
For articles and essays, there are a number of databases specifically designed for literary criticism research. These databases often identify literary criticism resources for you. Click on the tabs below to learn more about each database.
To find the full list of literary criticism databases, go to the library homepage and click on the red Browse Subjects button on the right side of the page in the TCC Article Databases box.
Choose Literature Criticism and Interpretation from the dropdown list. You will then see the list of databases that will help with your literary analysis paper. Scroll down to see our database recommendations.
For books, please see the TCC catalog on the library homepage.
"In the Library" will limit your catalog search to print books, and "Ebooks" will find online books you can access from off-campus. One of the fastest ways to get to the information you need is to search on either the name of the work you are analyzing OR the name of your author. If you add the word "criticism" to your search, it will help you find information analyzing that author's work. For example, the search shown below will find online books analyzing Shirley Jackson's work. Remember that you have access to all online library resources by logging in with your TCC email address and password.
