Spanish

Reference Books in the LCSC Library

Magill's Series

Critical Survey of Short Fiction - A multi-volume series commonly referred to as Magill's, in the Library's Reference Collection, for library use only. Each signed author entry in the Magill Critical Surveys includes the birth and death dates of the writer, a section on the writer's achievements, a brief biographical essay, an analysis of the writer's work, a list of the writer's principal literary works, and a selected annotated bibliography of critical works. The last volume of each set usually contains essays on the principal periods, schools, or forms of literature within the genre. Each volume is arranged alphabetically by the last name of the writer. There is a combined author-title index at the end of the last volume of each set. [Ref PN3373 .C7 1981]

Critical Survey of Long Fiction - A multi-volume series commonly referred to as Magill's, in the Library's Reference Collection. Each signed author entry in the Magill Critical Surveys includes the birth and death dates of the writer, a section on the writer's achievements, a brief biographical essay, an analysis of the writer's work, a list of the writer's principal literary works, and a selected annotated bibliography of critical works. The last volume of each set usually contains essays on the principal periods, schools, or forms of literature within the genre. Each volume is arranged alphabetically by the last name of the writer. There is a combined author-title index at the end of the last volume of each set. [Ref PN3451 .C75 1984]

Gale Series

Contemporary Authors - A multi-volume series in the Library's Reference Collection, for library use only. Contains biographical information on approximately 112,000 modern novelists, poets, playwrights, nonfiction writers, journalists and scriptwriters in the award-winning Contemporary Authors® series. Sketches typically include personal information, addresses, career history, writings, work in progress, biographical/critical sources and authors' comments and/or informative essays about their lives and work. Search the publisher's Literary Index to find the volume that has entries on your subject. [Ref PS129. C6]

Contemporary Literary Criticism - A multi-volume series in the Library's Reference Collection, for library use only. Covers authors who are currently active or who died after December 31, 1999. Each volume profiles approximately 6-8 novelists, poets, playwrights and other creative and nonfiction writers by providing full-text or excerpted criticism taken from books, magazines, literary reviews, newspapers and scholarly journals. Search the publisher's Literary Index to find the volume that has entries on your subject. [Ref PN77 .C59]

Dictionary of Literary Biography - A multi-volume series in the Library's Reference Collection, for library use only. Provides biographical information in theme-based volumes. Volume 113 covers Modern Latin American Fiction Writers. Volume 290 covers Modern Spanish American Poets. [Ref PS121 .D51]

Latin American Writers - A multi-volume series in the Library's Reference Collection, for library use only. Each volume contains a long chapter by an identified expert on a writer's work, including some analysis of the major works. Each entry also has a bibliography of the writer's work, as well as a bibliography of works about the writer, including critical studies and interviews. Search the publisher's Literary Index to find the volume that has entries on your subject. [Ref PQ7081 .A1 L37]

Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism - A multi-volume series in the Library's Reference Collection, for library use only. Presents substantial excerpts from the best criticism on the major literary figures and nonfiction writers, including novelists, poets, playwrights and literary theorists, of 1900 to 1999. Each volume presents overviews of four to eight authors with chronologically arranged criticism representing the entire range of response to each author. A typical excerpt is prefaced by an annotation that explains the critic's reputation and critical philosophy and providing a synopsis of the excerpt. Search the publisher's Literary Index to find the volume that has entries on your subject. [Ref PN771 .G27]

World Literature and Its Times - An 8-volume series in the Library's Reference Collection, for library use only. Each volume outlines about 50 literary works, with an introduction to the work, a discussion of events in history at the time the literary work takes place, the literary work in focus, a discussion of events in history at the time the literary work was written, and bibliographies for further reading. Volume 1 covers Latin American Literature; Volume 5 covers Spanish and Portuguese Literature. Search the publisher's Literary Index to find the volume that has entries on your subject. [Ref PQ7081 .M625]

Other Reference Books

Dictionary of Mexican Literature [Ref PQ7106 .D53 1992]

Modern Latin American Literature [Ref PQ7081 .F63 1975]

Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature [Ref PQ7081 .A1 E56]

Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003 [Ref PQ7081.A1 E558 2004]

Web Sites

FSI Language Courses - Language training courses provided by the Foreign Service Institute (U.S. government). They provide textbooks and some digitized audio files.

Latin American Literature - Sites organized by country, provided by the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS) at the University of Texas at Austin.

Literature in Spanish - Links to Websites on individual authors. Provided by Voice of the Shuttle, a website for Humanities Research, English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Virtual Keyboard - Provides a space to type in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, or Polish, using the special characters (diacritical marks) of each language. You can copy the text into other programs without having to download a font. Provided by Imagiforce Corporation.

Standardized Tests:

Test Prep Review -- Free access to sample questions from many standardized tests, such as graduate school entrance exams and certification exams.

Citations:

APA Citation Style - examples of citations in APA Format for your list of References.
MLA Citation Style - Guidance provided by the University of Illinois Writers' Workshop.

Using Modern Language Association (MLA) Format - Guidance provided by Purdue University Online Writing Lab.

Knight Cite -- An automatic generator of citations in either MLA, APA, or Chicago style. Registering for the service allows you to save citations to generate a bibliography. A free service provided by the Hekman Library at Calvin College.

Son of Citation Machine -- An "interactive Web tool designed to assist high school, college, and university students, their teachers, and independent researchers in their effort to respect other people's intellectual properties" (from the Website).

Research Paper Help:

Online Writing Lab - A service of the Humanities Division at LCSC, this center provides one-on-one advice from other students on improving your papers before turning them in.

Idea Generator - organized by general subject areas. A service of the Library at Old Dominion University. You can use these simple keywords to help you generate ideas of your own for focused research paper topics.

Assignment Calculator - Based on the start date and due date for your assignment, this calculator will map out benchmarks for completing tasks leading up to the final paper. It also provides links to other pages with tips on understanding your assignment, focusing your topic, etc. It was developed by the library at the University of Minnesota, so a few of its linked resources are not available to you. But we have many similar resources available to you on this campus.

Online Resources for Writers - Links to useful information from colleges and universities, covering all phases of writing academic essays. Provided by the Amherst Writing Center.

Wikipedia : Researching with Wikipedia - A page on the Wikipedia site that describes the strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia as a source of information. It includes this statement: "In all academic institutions, Wikipedia, along with most encyclopedias, is unacceptable as a major source for a research paper."