Conducting an advanced search in the Literature Resource Center database is easy.
From the main search page, choose Advanced Search:
The advanced search page allows you to choose which portions of the article record you want to search. Put the title of the work you are researching in the first search box and in the pull down menu choose "Name of Work."
In the second search box, enter your author's name (remember last name, first name) and choose "Person-By or About" from the pull down menu.
When you click on Search, the database will filter the articles and only return those in your search results that match the author and title you entered on the search screen.
Once your search results screen loads, you will notice that there are subject headings in the yellow bar on the left-hand side of the page. Some of those subject headings include specific themes that are addressed in the work of literature. The folder tabs across the top of your search results screen indicate the type of article. Read the articles carefully to discover if they address the particular theme you are researching.
If you are unable to find literary articles in the online databases, you may have to resort to the old fashioned method of conducting literary research: Books!
Traditionally, critical articles that are written about works of literature are collected yearly by the Gale Publishing company and organized into a reference volume. The articles in the reference work are organized by the author whose work is under discussion. Since different works of literature are discussed at different times, you might have a critical article appear in volume 10 of a reference set as well as volume 114, 225, and 346. The best way to discover which volumes of which sets of reference works contain critical articles about the work of literature you are researching is to use the:
Once you locate the work of literature you are researching, the Gale Literary Index will tell you which sets, volumes and page numbers of reference works to look in for critical articles. You can take that list into virtually any library and locate some if not all of the reference works.
The best way to search the Gale Literary Index is by author name. Enter the name of the author whose work you are researching (last name first). The author record will break out different works by the author and tell you where to locate critical articles on that specific work:
The Glass Menagerie Contemporary Literary Criticism, volume(s) 1:367, 369; 2:465-66; 5:498-99, 501, 503-04; 7:540-41, 543, 545; 8:547, 549; 11:571-76; 15:580; 19:470, 473-74; 30:455-58, 461, 464-66, 469-70; 39:446; 71:354-406; 111:379-80, 388-89, 391, 393, 395, 397, 404, 408, 414, 417-24 World Literature Criticism, edition(s) 6:3989-93, 3995-97, 4000, 4004-06 Drama Criticism, volume(s) 4:371-74, 378-79, 381-91, 398, 418 Drama for Students, volume(s) 1:123-139 Reference Guide to American Literature (St. James Press, an imprint of Gale), edition(s) 4:996-97 Literature and Its Times Supplement, volume(s) 1:2:141-50.