English Scavenger Hunt

The purpose of this activity is to introduce you to some of the important research tools in literature. You will be using many of these resources again over the course of your academic career. Please record your answers .

Possible sources:

Print: Book Review Digest; Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, Magill's Survey of World Literature; Magill's Survey of American Literature; Gale's Criticism Series (eg. Short Story Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Drama Criticism,Twentieth Century Literary Criticism), Gale's ...for Students Series (eg. Poetry for Students, Drama for Students); American Writers; Literature in its Times.

Online: Find links to the following in the various sections of the Virtual Library. GaleNet Literature Resource Center, Biography Resource Center, and Discovering Authors Modules; Infotrac, EBSCOhost; Wilson Biographies; Alexandria Patron Catalog, Gale Literary Index, IPL Literary Criticism Collections; Pilot Search Engine; New York Times Book Review; Researchpaper.com, Amazon.com, MLA Style, Playbill Online, Purdue OWL

  1. In what broad Dewey number(s) are most of the high school library's literary criticism books located?
  2. Use Readers' Guide to find a review of a movie that premiered the year you were born. Cite the review in MLA style.
  3. Use the Internet Public Library's Literary Criticism Collection to find a Web biography on Albert Camus.
  4. Find a New York Times review of Pet Sematary by Stephen King. How far back does the NYT Book Review go on the Web?
  5. How would you find a review of a book written in 1968? Give a citation for a review of a popular title from 1968.
  6. How many volumes of Twentieth-Century Literary Critism are located in the library?
  7. Find a volume of American Writers that covers Kurt Vonnegut. List one detail about his experience in WWII.
  8. Visit Amazon.com. Find reviews of Toni Morrison's Beloved. Which noted author was one of the reviewers?
  9. Use Magill's Survey of World Literature to find how Antigone and Creon are caught in a "double bind."
  10. Use an online journal index to find an article about J.K. Rowling. Cite it in proper MLA format.
  11. Find one good idea for a research paper in Researchpaper.com
  12. Visit CNN.com and list one news event from Africa for today.
  13. Current Biography is one of the print sources contained in Wilson Biographies Online. Use either the print or the online source to find an obituary of a well-known author. Cite the source.
  14. Give the complete street address for Shakespeare's birth home.
  15. Use Playbill Online to find out what is currently playing at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre.
  16. Using the patron catalog, list the title of one book of criticism about D.H. Lawrence.
  17. List five authors covered in African American Writers.
  18. World Literary Criticism notes that Dylan Thomas is known best for two things. What are they?
  19. According to Literature and Its Times, what is George Orwell's really attacking in his novel 1984?
  20. According to Drama for Students, what are three themes of Antigone?
  21. Identify two authors who provide critical commentary on only Antigone in Drama Criticism.
  22. According to the Purdue OWL, what are three strategies you might use to add emphasis when you are writing?