Any websites with lit criticism similar to JStor?

[SirJazzHands]

I can't access it which pisses me off, and I'd like to read more on Faulkner and Salinger.

[JBI]

If your public library has a database that is the best place to look. You won't find much for free on the internet without access to university databases.

[SirJazzHands]

Why, exactly? I don't understand why that stuff should be sheltered..

[kratsayra]

you may already be searching with scholar.google.com - and it may make you more annoyed because a lot of what comes up will probably be inaccessible. However, sometimes I come across articles of interest that are published in journals that don't restrict their web access. Might be worth a shot. Although considering your interests, you might come up with too much of low quality.

the reason you have to pay for things like J-Stor is because they provide access to quarterly academic journals that cost money. if a university subscribes to the journal or the service, it is like paying for the journal. sure, I think all information should be free. ;) but that's not the way it is. and the articles available on J-Stor are just like any other published media (book, etc) that otherwise cost money for the general public (but that you can get in a university library).

[JBI]

Google Scholar doesn't certify that the work is peer reviewed, much less edited, or even read, by someone other than the author who is a specialist in the field and therefore isn't really reliable. It's good for getting some information, but for any research, you cannot actually use it without being extremely careful, and, after that, you still need to sift through everything, which is even more difficult.

[JBI]

Why, exactly? I don't understand why that stuff should be sheltered..

the people who wrote those articles need to eat too.

[SirJazzHands]

Hm I guess. I always just considered criticism something interesting to read, no clue people got paid substantially for it

[JBI]

They don't, but they get something. If you have a public library in your area, which has a website, chances are you may be able to access JSTOR from there.

[kratsayra]

Google Scholar doesn't certify that the work is peer reviewed, much less edited, or even read, by someone other than the author who is a specialist in the field and therefore isn't really reliable. It's good for getting some information, but for any research, you cannot actually use it without being extremely careful, and, after that, you still need to sift through everything, which is even more difficult.

yes, caution is definitely advised. But if you know what you're looking for it can be useful. I have found some pretty good articles that I wouldn't have found through standard academic search engines.

[Jozanny]

They don't, but they get something. If you have a public library in your area, which has a website, chances are you may be able to access JSTOR from there.

My question is about the quality of the Jstor database. If I take the trouble to create an account through my free library, or university libraries I have access to, would it give me a good critical field to mine? An an example for me would be criticism written on The Leopard. Google got me to the professor who wrote Plotting The Past. She was very kind but informed me her edition was out of print. Is Jstor good enough to give me online access to critical texts like this?

I would take an answer from anyone, including JBI.

That you grad level members!:p

[Drkshadow03]

My question is about the quality of the Jstor database. If I take the trouble to create an account through my free library, or university libraries I have access to, would it give me a good critical field to mine? An an example for me would be criticism written on The Leopard. Google got me to the professor who wrote Plotting The Past. She was very kind but informed me her edition was out of print. Is Jstor good enough to give me online access to critical texts like this?

I would take an answer from anyone, including JBI.

That you grad level members!:p


Yes and no. JSTOR has scholarly articles of a high quality, but they are generally older articles, quite often pre-1990s.

Secondly, I believe the specific text you are referring to is a book by Christina Della Coletta. Yes?

JSTOR and databases in general are not really made for finding books. Their primary function is to find scholarly articles. The good thing about JSTOR is that the articles are full-text electronically. Whereas, in MLA International, those include more up to date publications, but not full-text (then it depends whether your library has a hard-copy or has purchased that journal online either through a different database or in an electronic journal package). Basically to sum up you cannot find books in JSTOR, you can only find scholarly articles which are electronic full-text. You also generally won't find anything too recent.

If you wanted the Plotting The Past book you could try interlibrary loan, but sometimes they charge a fee for that.

[Jozanny]

Yes and no. JSTOR has scholarly articles of a high quality, but they are generally older articles, quite often pre-1990s.

Secondly, I believe the specific text you are referring to is a book by Christina Della Coletta. Yes?

Yes, I'd rather buy a used copy if I can get it, thanks Drk. One of my flaws as a writer is I believe I can command any form I damn well please, even though I can't--but I would very much like to produce one or two well thought out critical essays--not for money, just for the pleasure of the work. Thanks.

I will make the effort to create an account then.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes, just to echo the previous question how do you rate the quality of articles on JStor? Are they all/most acceptable for undergraduate essays, thanks?

[mayneverhave]

Besides JSTOR, there's:

Literature Criticism Online

Gale's Literary Index

Project Muse

And a few more. All of these unfortunately require university access.

All of the essays on JSTOR are properly cited, and at the level of undergraduate use.

[Drkshadow03]

Yes, just to echo the previous question how do you rate the quality of articles on JStor? Are they all/most acceptable for undergraduate essays, thanks?

Pretty much anything found in JSTOR should be appropriate for both undergraduate and graduate work since they only archive scholarly journals.

If you were using other databases like "Academic Search Premier" that would be a different story since that database contains scholarly, popular, and trade journal articles.

If you are planning to write something for publication as opposed to just looking for a few resources to write a paper for class you definitely need to look at other Humanities-oriented databases and learn some other tricks for finding criticism because you're going to need a lot more criticism than what you can find in just JSTOR. As I pointed out the weakness of JSTOR is that most of its material is very old; so you're not getting up to date criticism or the latest trends in the field. Also, NO single database contains ALL citations; so you need to dig.

----------------------------------------

Also, you can find some literary criticism online.

The Internet Public Library (http://www.ipl.org/div/litcrit/) is a great place to go. They only include high quality reliable resources that are available free on the internet, usually essays professors put up for their classes.

Keep in mind there are some things you'll never be able to find on the open web and the sites are better starting points rather than ending points if you have the means and abilities to do research at the university.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Thanks. I have mostly relied upon critical books from what I can find in the university and city libraries and largely ignored online resources in the past. I remember some students last year talking about JStor, but I have always been unable to access it till now, so I will give it a try.

[Drkshadow03]

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Open Source. If you go to the Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=subject&cpid=9) there are a whole list of peer-reviewed literature Journals with criticism available online for free.

The catch?

Most of them are not in English, some of them are purely for linguistics although some also deals with literature, and most of them aren't exactly high impact journals. To put it another way, they will all contain good and valid literary criticism (my last comments were in no way meant to disparage open source journals), but that STILL doesn't give you access to the criticism found in the journals that aren't open source and you are therefore missing out on major parts of the scholarly conversation.

But all of the journals found at the link should be free and you can find legit criticism there.