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Course Research Guides

SPAN 252: The Love Story in Latin American Prose

Winter 2009 - Becky Boling

In this guide:

Getting Help


Finding Articles

Below is a list of just a few databases that might be useful for your research. Remember to try keyword searches (both in Spanish and in English), examine the information for relevant looking articles, and collect the subject terms that you find there to use in later searches.

  • MLA International Bibliography
    Excellent for literary research in Spanish and English. Remember that you can specify the "Author as Subject" and the "Author's Work" when you search, and even combine these with keyword searches if you wish.
    To find articles in Spanish:
    1. Type "Spanish" into a search box box and select "Language, LA=" from the drop-down menu.
    2. Search primarily in English, though you will be able to search for the Spanish titles of works.
  • JSTOR
    This database has full text access to some of the most important scholarly journals in the field.
    To find articles in Spanish:
    1. Do you search (In Spanish)
    2. Select "Spanish" from the language drop down box below the search boxes.

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Finding Books

Search Bridge to find books available here and at St. Olaf, and search WorldCat to find books available elsewhere in the United States.

To request a book from St. Olaf, click the red "request" button near the top left of your screen as you're looking at the record for the book you want. To request books from other libraries, search WorldCat, locate the book(s) you want, then search Bridge to make sure we don't have it here, then click the "Request via Illiad" button in WorldCat.

Remember that you can search for an author's name as a subject by going to the Advanced Search screen in Bridge and selecting "Subject contains" and then typing the author's name (last name first) into the search box.

You can also limit your results to Spanish language books in both Bridge and WorldCat.

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Citation Help

  • MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
    Ready Reference Shelf: LB236 .G53 2003
    Bibliography instructions on pages 142-235.

Citing Books: 147-160

  • Basic form:
    Last, First. Title. City: Publisher, Year.
    Note: Be on the lookout for books that are in a series, are translated, or are made up of multiple volumes, as those have slightly different forms.
  • Examples:
    Allende, Isabel. Retrato en sepia. Barcelona: Plaza Janés, 2000.
    Note: Titles in Spanish only capitalize the first word. Titles in English capitalize every major word.

    ---. Portrait in Sepia. Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. New York: Harper Collins, 2001. [The author's name becomes three dashes when repeated in a bibliography.]

Essays in books fall under the "Work in an Anthology" section on page 158.

  • Basic form:
    Last, First. "Essay Title." Book Title. Ed. First Last. City: Publisher, Year. Pages.
    Note: If you cite more than one essay from the same book, follow the directions for cross referencing on page 162 of the MLA handbook.
    Example:
    Navarro Tejero, Antonia and Manuel Cabello Pino. "Magic Realism in Arundhati Roy and Isabel Allende: The Experience of Dislocation." Figures of Belatedness: Postmodernist Fiction in English. Ed. Javie Gascueña Gahete and Paula Martín Salván. Córdoba, Spain: Universidad de Córdoba, 2006. 225-37.

Citing Articles: 180-185 (with instructions for special issues on pages 192-193)

  • Basic Form:
    Last, First. "Article Title." Journal Title volume.issue (year): pages. [no period after the journal title]
    Example:

    Lagos, María Inés. "Female Voices from the Borderlands: Isabel Allende's Paula and Retrato en sepia." Latin American Literary Review 30.60 (2002): 112-27.

Article found as HTML Full Text in a database (not PDF) or in an online-only journal (such as those in the Directory of Open Access Journals): 222

  • Basic Form:
    Last, First. "Article Title." Journal Title volume.issue (year): pages if paginated. Database. date. . [Date follows the format: day month year. Also, if there is no database or no pages, simply leave those elements out of your citation]
    Examples:

    Foley, Barbara. "'Lepers in the Acropolis': Liberalism, Capitalism, and the Crisis in Academic Labor." Contemporary Literature 39 (1998): 317-35. ProQuest. 20 April 2007. <http://proquest.umi.com/>.

In-Text Citation

Place at the end of a sentence, before the period, unless that's confusing.

  • Basic Form:
    (last name page number; last name page number) [no comma between last name and page number]
    Remember to include a shortened form of the title if last name is not enough to uniquely identify the work cited.
    Example:

    (Allende Portrait 278)

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This Research Guide By:

  • Iris Jastram's trading card, 2007-2009
    Iris M. Jastram