English Literature Research

The librarians have made many short videos, which are posted on our YouTube channel, that explain the best ways to use our tools.  

Google Scholar is powerful & can be used to search for academic articles & books. Google Books gives book previews. 

Google Scholar should give you links to our library's articles in the right margin of your search! We recommend that you link Google Scholar to our library to see links.  You may also want the Google Scholar Button browser tool.

How to link Google Scholar to Regent Library:  

• Go to Google Scholar
• Open the three-bar menu in the upper left 
• Click "Settings" in the drop-down menu
• Click "Library Links" 
• Search for 'regent university'
• Select the Regent University boxes
• Click "Save" 
   

When you are searching:

• Search for your key words, titles, or authors. Try different combinations.
• Google automatically looks for synonyms & other spellings.
• When you find an article that's in our collection, it will have a link to the article in the right margin 
• You can also try clicking the title of the source to see if it is on the web somewhere, or previewed on Google Books
• For books or articles that don't give a link, you will need to copy the title into Primo to see if we have them or to request them
   

Tips for Using Google Scholar (Special Operators)

• use limits for date of publication if needed
• note that it will tell you the impact of each article (how much it's been cited)
• try enclosing key phrases in quotation marks to zero in on them, like "first amendment" or "attachment theory"
• try synonyms & similar terms; use the word OR between them, like college OR university 
• use the minus symbol to exclude unrelated words, like Abraham -Lincoln (if you want Abraham from the Bible)
• use the word AROUND to indicate words should be near each other in the results, like Covid AROUND lockdown
• Use an asterisk star * to take the place of missing or unknown words in a phrase
• Try Search site: thenyourkeywords (no spaces)--if looking for a website title.
• Try Search intext: then key words--if looking for it in the text of the website, not the title.
• You do not need to use AND or parentheses with Google
• Also, note that even if you don't use OR, it will treat the various terms as options--you can enter a lot of terms
• You don't need to use an asterisk at the end of a word to bring up different word endings as Google does that already
  
  Great Uses for Google: You can find background information or basic terminology on your topic through regular Google, as well as religious websites, free archives, classic e-books, newspaper & magazine articles, think tanks, open-access journals, and government sources. Remember to use discernment as not everything is credible.

1. To use RefWorks the first time, go to this page and create a password (use your Regent email) OR go to Primo library search, sign in, click your name at the top right, and select RefWorks from the drop-down menu.
    
2. From then on, you can click RW next to any source record in Primo (the main library search) or a database to export the source into RefWorks. In a database, look at the options menu for each source (sometimes 3 dots or options in the margin) and look for the "RW" export option.  
    
3. Then, when you are in RefWorks, be sure to click "Import" to finish the process. Add it to a folder if desired.
    
4. You can also enter sources manually (i.e. copy and paste the title, author, etc.).  
    
5. Then go to "Last Imported" or folders to select sources, and click "Create Bibliography" at the top and select your format, such as APA 7 no title casing or MLA 9 title casing.
    
6. Click control C to copy the bibliography and then control V to paste it in your assignment.