ABELL Brief Search Guide

ABELL is the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature. It provides access to scholarly books, articles, and book chapters from 1920 to the present.

When working with ABELL, you will first be taken to the ABELL Home Page. To begin searching, click on "Search" from the menu of choices at the left of the screen. The ABELL Search page has several text boxes to use. These boxes can be used one at a time, or in any combination, depending on the search.

FOR ALL SEARCHES:

Use the ABELL navigation links, ("Modify Search", "Search History", "New Search") to move around the ABELL database. Do not use your web browser back and forward buttons.

To find common plurals and other variants, add an asterisk (*) at the end of the root. For example, the search industr* would retrieve the words "industry", "industrial", "industrious", and so forth.

To find words and terms that are more meaningful if they are searched as a phrase, surround the phrase with quotation marks. For example: "North and South".

To find articles, books, or book chapters that contain either of two terms, separate them with the word OR. For example: women OR woman. This is a way to pick up synonyms for the same concept.

KEYWORD:

Use this text box to search for terms, topics, and authors of literary works. A keyword search retrieves citations that contain the queried word anywhere in the record.

TITLE KEYWORD:

Use this option to search for words in the the titles of scholarly articles and books (not the titles of literary works). It is more specific than a keyword search, but can miss items of interest due to the varying words used by the authors of the article. It would be useful if you were looking for the citation of a known article (e.g. you know the article title, but need the name of the journal in which it appears).

SUBJECT:

Use this to find works that have been classified under specific subject / genre headings. Subject searches are most effective if you select from the headings ABELL uses. To do so, type the last name of the author of interest or another subject word, e.g. Eliot, and click "Select from a List". ABELL takes you to an alphabetical list of subject headings surrounding the term Eliot. Clicking on the box next to Eliot, George, and then clicking "Select", will put that exact heading in your search box.

AUTHOR/REVIEWER:

Use this to find scholarly articles, books, or book chapters written by particular scholars or critics. E.g. to retrieve articles written by Professor Baym, you would type Baym in the Author/Reviewer field.

PUBLICATION DETAILS:

This can be used to find works published by a particular publisher or in a particular city. For example, if you were to type in Cambridge, you would retrieve items published in Cambridge MA, Cambridge England, and/or by Cambridge University Press.

JOURNAL:

To find articles written in a particular journal, type the name of the journal. For example: Sewanee Review. Or type the first word or two of the title, and click "Select from a list".

PUBLICATION YEAR:

If you wish to restrict your search to a particular time range, enter the start and end dates in the boxes.

LIMIT TO:

Limit to allows you to search all the items in the database, or restrict your search to reviws, articles, or books.

MANAGING CITATIONS:

When you press "Search", you will be shown the first 50 citations in your List of Results. Citations will be in brief citation format.

You can scan the list of citations, marking the items of interest by checking the little box next to the citation. Clicking on "Add selected records to marked list" will add the checked records to a set for e-mailing / printing / downloading. A window opens, confirming that your selections have been added to the Marked Records List.

If you prefer, you can look at the full record for one item by clicking on the underlined title. ABELL will open up a screen wit the full record of the item. You may choose to look at "Previous record", "Next record", or "Back to results".

When you have finished reviewing the list of citations and have added as many items to the marked list as you need, press the "Search" link on the navigation bar at the left. Then click on the "Marked Records" link.

Please consult the ABELL Citation Guide to discover how to find these items in the Library.

English Library 321 Library 1408 W. Gregory Dr. Urbana, Illinois 61801 (217) 333-2220 Comments to: Kathleen M. Kluegel Updated: 20 October, 2004 gtr Guide is for ABELL, at the University of Illinois