iLink is the RCC Online Catalog of all the materials available in the RCC Library. Also included are the holdings of 46 other community college libraries that make up the Community Colleges Libraries in North Carolina consortium (CCLINC). It includes books, periodicals, videos, CDs, and more.  The catalog can be searched by author, keyword, title, or subject.

The library maintains many more sources than those listed here, so it is important to browse the shelves around the call number to locate other relevant resources.

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Critical Surveys and Literary Histories
These resources attempt to “survey” the field of literature for particular times and places, literary forms, and styles of an era. Such surveys discuss the works of authors who are considered to be the most important, exemplary of the era, widely read, and/or critically regarded.  Literary histories describe the significant literary events of each period or era.

Critical Survey of Short Fiction   (Ref 809.31 Cri)
Drama Criticism   (Ref 809.2 Dra)
Identities and Issues in Literature   (Ref 810.992 Ide)
Latino and Latina Writers   (Ref 810.986 Lat)
Modern American Literature   (Ref 810.9 Cur)
Moulton’s Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors
(separate volumes for various eras Ref 820.9 Mou)
Oxford Companion to Women’s Writing in the United States   (Ref 810.992 Oxf)
Survey of American Poetry   (Ref 811.008 Sur)

Dictionaries

A dictionary is any single or multi-volume work which briefly explains terms and topics related to a specific subject, usually arranged alphabetically.  Dictionaries are useful for understanding terminology and concepts, identifying synonyms and related terms, and are useful resources to consult when formulating and refining your research strategy.  Illustrations and references to additional resources are often included.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (Ref 808.88 Bar)
A Dictionary of Literary Symbols   (Ref 809.915 Fer)
Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations (Ref 808.882 Oxf)
Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable   (Ref 803 Oxf)
Twentieth-century Caribbean and Black African Writers   (Ref 809.04 Dic)

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedias are a good starting point for researching topics that you do not know much about or that are completely new to you.  They can give you background information which can help when you move to more in-depth resources later.  Specialized, or subject encyclopedias, may cover just one field or even a sub-unit of that field.

Cyclopedia of Literary Characters   (Ref 803 Mag)
Encyclopedia of Southern Literature   (Ref 810.9 Sno)
New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics   (Ref 808.103 New)

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Handbooks, Manuals, and Guides

These resources supply concise factual and statistical information, often in the form of charts, graphs, tables and formulas.  They offer very basic information, with little or no discussion or analysis of the facts they present.  These tools may be general or specific to a field, group of people, or era.  Try searching the online catalog using the keywords of your topic combined with one of the following keywords: “handbook,” “manual,” or “guide.”

APA Publication Manual   (Reserve Desk 808.02 Pub)
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers   (Reserve Desk 808.027)
The Oxford Companion to American Literature   (Ref 810.9 Har)
The Oxford Companion to English Literature   (Ref 820.3 Har)

Find E-books

Password Required for Database Access Off-campus
Login to Campus Cruiser and locate the password on the Library Services page, ASK a Librarian here or call (336) 633-0204 to obtain password.

Credo Reference (You must enter off-campus password in the < Library Card Number > field)
Online reference collection featuring full-text content from hundreds of reference books covering a broad range of subjects. Click on one of these titles of interest to search it directly: Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story, Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature, and Dictionary of Literary Symbols.

Gale Virtual Reference Library (available through NC Live)
Provides respected authoritative essays on varied topics from numerous subject areas, all in E-Book reference title format. Coverage: 1999 - 2005.

NetLibrary (available through NC Live)
Provides easy access to the full text of more than 24,000 reference, scholarly, and professional books. Includes fiction and non-fiction titles.

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Find Articles

Password Required for Database Access Off-campus
Login to Campus Cruiser and locate the password on the Library Services page, ASK a Librarian here or call (336) 633-0204 to obtain password.

NC LIVE (selected literature databases)

African-American Poetry – nearly 3,000 poems written by African-American poets in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Academic Search Premier – contains full-text articles and citations; a good source for information on contemporary authors and for book reviews.

American Poetry – over 40,000 poems by more than 200 American poets from the Colonial Period to the early 20th century.

Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers – literature and literary criticism of current, best-selling fiction authors and titles.

Literature in Context – is a collection of “primary source material, collateral readings, and commentary that helps students understand the historical, social, and cultural milieu associated with major literary works.”

Literary Reference Center - contains full text for plot summaries, synopses and work overviews, nearly 100,000 articles/essays of literary criticism, author biographies (including 20,000 in-depth bios), literary journals, book reviews, classic and contemporary poems, classic and contemporary short stories, author interviews, more than 7,100 classic texts and much more.

Other Literary Databases

Literature Resource Center (LitRC) – “provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every age and literary discipline; covers more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers, with in-depth coverage of 2,500 of the most-studied authors.”

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 Find Websites

Remember to evaluate whether the information you find on the Internet is appropriate for your assignment.  You can find help for evaluating websites at: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: or, Why It's a Good Idea to Evaluate Web Sources 

Literature Criticism and Analysis

Internet Public Library Online Literary Criticism Collection
Contains "critical and biographical websites about authors and their works that can be browsed by author, by title, or by literary period."

Literary History Resources

Literary Movements  Extensive collection of information on American authors, including a timeline, bibliographies, and many, many links. Well done, and a good place to start on American literature.

Literary Resources on the Net  “This set of pages is a collection of links to sites on the Internet dealing especially with English and American literature, excluding most single electronic texts, and is limited to collections of information useful to academics…” 

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Citation Styles Online (using MLA, APA, Chicago, & CBE to cite online information)   

Samples of APA Style (RCC English Department approved)

Sample Research Paper: APA Style 

Samples of MLA Style (RCC English Department approved)

Sample Research Papers: MLA Style

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A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary  

WriteExpress Online Rhyming Dictionary   

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