Research in Spanish involves understanding and interpreting different genres; uses of rhetoric; applying theory and linguistics; and teaching it across all educational levels. Whether you're learning the language and culture, a Heritage speaker, or taking a class across specific authors, films, or a literary time period, you'll find a range of resources to support your learning. Much of your research will require finding critiques on an author's works. Here are some recommended resources for doing that.
A primary source is the work itself being discussed, and also, in research, materials written or created about it during the time period in which it was created. Primary works can include initial publication book reviews, diaries and letters, manuscript drafts, communication with publishers and collaborators, interviews, and speeches.
You can find books and articles and limit their publication date to your chose writer's time period using SuperSearch. The JSTOR peer reviewed journal collection is especially helpful because it offers historic coverage going back to first issues of journals. So you can find an initial review of a collection of Federico Garcia Lorca's work as well as interviews of contemporary writers.
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Interview with Gabriel Garcia Marquez This interview is a primary source. Most databases provide automated citing as below:
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In SuperSearch, use the advanced search to search by an author/creator to find his/her works and possibly collections of letters and other primary materials by that author. Using the keyword search finds everything associated with that author: both primary and secondary, and even tertiary items, which include encyclopedia entries and give the broadest overviews.
These include critiques and analysis not from the lifespan or shortly thereafter of a writer, or more broadly, the time period of a literary movement. Journal articles and books that provide overviews fall into this category. Analyses of a particular work or an author's ouevre over time- theoretical treatments using a cultural or political framework, such as New Historicism, feminism, colonialism, ecocriticism, or postmodernism, offering the author's interpretation, are secondary sources. In Super Search, you can narrow down your results by subject, or use the Advanced Search to search your author as a subject.
Obras Completas by Reference materials are compilations of secondary and primary sources about authors, works, and literary movements. They consist of biographies, historical timelines, and compilations, such as anthologies similar to survey texts, and books such as Dictionary of Literary Biography and the Twayne's Author Series. While these provide substantial background information, and can include full book chapters of analysis (secondary sources) or excerpts from peer reviewed journal articles, it's best to use these in tandem with primary and secondary materials. Information from reference sources is designed to provide context for further exploration of a topic.
Concise Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature by 
A Dictionary of Literary Symbols by 
Encyclopedia of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003 by 
Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English by Biography in Context offers a comprehensive selection of information, including images, audiovisual, scholarly and news articles.
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Author Sherman Alexie, using poetry and prose saturated with imagery, drama, and humor, has shed light on what it means to be an Indian in contemporary American society. His works have helped his fellow Indians to understand themselves better by honing in on typical problems rampant on reservations, including poverty, alcoholism, and racism. However, Alexie's characters are not the cliched stone-faced people who accept their lot in defeat; rather, he exposes the rich sense of humor that Indians commonly use to deal with their problems. His works are also useful in helping non-Indians recognize the issues that Indians face and...View More |
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