LibGuides: ENGL 645: The Short Story: Home

The following databases are the best places to look for relevant information for your project. Please remember that MLA will give you an excellent overview of international resources but that you won't be able to access the full text articles from there. Thus, you'll need to factor in time to use interlibrary loan. If you request an article, you can get that in 24-48 hours.

MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window
The best and most comprehensive index covering literature, literary theory & criticism, languages & linguistics, dramatic arts, and folklore from thousands of journals and series published worldwide. Please keep in mind that you will find citations for the articles here and will need to use interlibrary loan to get the articles.
Project Muse This link opens in a new window
Full-text of 300+ peer-reviewed journals. Covers literature, history, the arts, culture, education, political science, gender studies, etc.
JSTOR Journal Archive This link opens in a new window
A full-text archive of over 1,000 of the best scholarly journals in the social sciences, humanities, mathematics, life sciences, etc. Full-text is available from the first issue, but does not include the most recent 2-5 years.
Academic Search Ultimate This link opens in a new window
Full-text access to thousands of popular and scholarly sources. A "goto" database for any subject.

Insights on Craft & the Short Story

"How To Write a Good Short Story"

1 minute and 29 second video with Kurt Vonnegut's eight rules or pieces of craft advice on writing a good short story

Our Very Own Adventure: Towards a Poetics of the Short Story by Carolyne Lee
ISBN: 9780522858679
Publication Date: 2011-02-15
Delves into distinct craft differences between the short story and the novel.
Short Story Theories by Charles E. May (Editor)
Call Number: PN3373 .S39
ISBN: 0821401890
Publication Date: 1977-12-01
The Lonely Voice by Frank O'Connor
Call Number: PN3373 .O36
ISBN: 1935554425
Publication Date: 2011-06-07

Take Risks and Tell the Truth: How to Write a Great Short Story
Irish novelist and short story writer Donal Ryan provides advice on writing short stories and endorses "Short Story Theories" and "The Lonely Voice" as excellent sources for exploring short story craft. Consider how this functions as an example of investigating a source by gathering endorsement from a trusted authority. This is relevant to the evaluating information section below.

Evaluating information freely available online

Distinguishing between freely available and paywalled online content
Using SIFT to evaluate information

While you will encounter a lot of Millersville library's content online, most of this content is not freely available. Instead it lives behind a paywall that may not always be as obvious as a Google Scholar paywall stopping you from accessing an article you really want. As a contrast, freely available information may be reliable and insightful, but since it is not necessarily vetted in the same way as scholarly or even well fact-checked print sources (think reputable newspapers), it is not as reliable as something you would find in our databases.

This means that you need to carefully evaluate what you find freely available online, which happens to be a good source of relevant content for this assignment. Our databases will have more biographically or critically-oriented material, with some of the critical material having more potential overlap with the craft angle of your assignment.

SIFT is an evaluation tool created by Mike Caulfield. The letters stand for "Stop, Investigate the Source, Find Better Coverage, and Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media to the Original Source." Always look at the "about" section on a website to determine why and how the person, people, or organization providing you with the information has the authority and expertise to be credible in that field. If they don't seem credible, you should consider finding better coverage.