English: Background Information

Broad, comprehensive companions, handbooks, and guides, from respected publishers, provide excellent overviews to key genres, authors, periods, theories, and other literary topics. To find these, type companion OR guide AND [your topic] into  UC Library Search.

•  "graphic novels" AND (companion OR guide)                   
•  postcolon* AND literature AND companion

Use quotation marks to search your words as a phrase. 

Use the asterisk wildcard * to find alternate endings to a root word: postcolonial, postcolonialism, postcolonialists, postcolonialisation, postcolonialization.

Below are a few examples of language dictionaries at UCSB Library. To find others, use UC Library Search, modeling from the examples below.

• dictionaries AND "american english"
• dictionaries AND postmodern*
• dictionaries AND "gothic literature"

Use the asterisk symbol * to include alternate endings to your word: postmodern, postmodernist, postmodernism

Use quotation marks to search your term as a complete phrase.

When you get your results select Resource Type > Books from the left toolbar.

Biographical reference sources can give you brief, authoritative information on the lives of noted individuals throughout history, as well as guidance for further reading. To find biographies in UC Library Search, type in a word or phrase that represents your general topic, along with the word biography, modeling from the examples below:

biography AND "women writers"

biography AND "asian americans" AND literature

biography AND poet* AND latin america*

Use quotation marks to search your terms as a phrase.

Use the asterisk wildcard * to search all variant endings to a word: poet* retrieves entries containing poet, poets, poetical, poetry.

When you get your results, select Resource Type > Books from the left toolbar.