Side Photo Spa 4220: Cine y literatura en América Latina
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Once you have determined a topic, issue or subject of interest, you will need to focus the topic into a researchable question.
The following steps should help you break the process down:
- Plan your approach to the topic. Identify related issues, people, events etc. Determine your perspective. List what you know and what you need to know.
- Develop keywords that represent your topic. You'll use these to search for books and articles for your paper. Encyclopedia and reference books can help identify keywords.
- Read around your topic to develop a comprehensive understanding of your topic. Utilize reference sources to provide you with an overview and background information on a topic, the established knowledge on a topic, the most important facts about a topic, the key figures, places, or events related to your topic and a list of recommended readings on a topic
See the following sections to give further advice on developing keywords and banckground information.
Before you start to research a topic, you need to develop keywords that represent your research interest, question, or inquiry.
Keywords are significant words (usually nouns or noun phrases) which can be used as search terms in online catalogs or databases. Keywords will determine the quantity and relevance of results you retrieve when searching.
First you will identify and articulate your topic in your own words:
Example: I am interested in investigating the representation of corruption in Latin American cinema
Next you will designate the main concepts or ideas that describe the topic:
Concept 1:
representation
Concept 2:
corruption
Concept 3:
Latin American cinema
Then develop other terms and vocabulary that represent the topic. Some terms may be broader, narrower, or synonyms. Adding terms that represent geographical distincitions, time periods, or significant figures about your topic may also be useful.
Concept 1:
portrayal
illustration
account
embodiment
Concept 2:
bribery
extortion
fraud
perversion
Concept 3:
Spanish American
Movies
Film Industry
Motion pictures
Combining Keywords
Operators:
AND: portrayal AND representation (must find both terms)
OR: bribery OR extortion (must find one of the terms)
NOT: Spain NOT Madrid (must find first term NOT second term)
Punctuation:
Phrases: “Spanish American” (must find that phrase in that order)
Synonyms: (fraud OR extortion) AND Argentina
Wildcards: Latin America* will find Latin American, Latin Americans etc
You may use the UCB Search Strategy/ Keyword Worksheetto develop your own topic.
For details on combining keywords for the best results view the
A good place to find keywords is from reference sources.
Reference Universe: This is a searchable database that indexes information from specialized subject encyclopedias. It does not include the full text of reference materials but will point you to reference sources that cover your topic. It searches both the titles of reference articles as well as the encyclopedia / dictionary indexes, providing a thorough level of access to materials and potential sources. CU
Some more CU Reference Source examples:
General Online Encyclopedias:
Encyclopedia Britannica CU
Gale Virtual Reference Library CU
Oxford Digital Reference Shelf CU
Specialized Dictionaries:
Oxford Language Dictionaries Online CU
Real Academia Española: http://www.rae.es/rae.html
Literature
The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms
Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture
Johns Hopkins guide to literary theory & criticism
The Cambridge history of Spanish literature
PQ6033 .C36 2004
Diccionario de literatura española e hispanoamericana. 1993 (2 volumes)
PQ6006 .D6
A Sourcebook for Hispanic Literature and Language. 1995
Z2695 .A2 B55
Hispanic Literature Criticism. 1994. (2 volumes)
PQ7081 .A1 H573
Film
International dictionary of films and filmmakers
A Guide to Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino made film and video
REF PN1995.9.L37 G85 1998
La Sala Oscura : Guía Del Cine Gay Español Y Latinoamericano
PN1995.9.H55 L43 2001
South American cinema : a critical filmography, 1915-1994
PN1993.5.S63 S68 1996
Films by genre : 775 categories, styles, trends and movements defined
REF PN1998 .L63 1993
International dictionary of broadcasting and film
REF PN1990.4 .B64 2000
International motion picture almanac
REF PN1993 .I55
Women's companion to international film
REF PN1993.45 .W6 1994For more reference source search tips, go to How do I find Reference Sources.
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Chinook is the catalog for materials owned by the CU Libraries. You can also use MyChinook to manage your library account (including renewals, holds, recalls, saved searches, etc.)
If you search Chinook and find that the CU Libraries do not have the item you are looking for (or if the item you are looking for is checked out), you can search Prospector, which is a combined library catalog of 23 libraries in Colorado and Wyoming.
If the item you are looking for is not in Chinook or Prospector, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Generally, an ILL request will take longer to be delivered than material requested through Prospector.
Author Resources
To find books by an author do an AUTHOR search in Chinook.
To find books about an author or an author's work, do a KEYWORD search in Chinook for the author's name.
Or do a SUBJECT search in Chinook to browse the subjects in the catalog:
Use and Adapt these Subject Keywords |
| Criticism and Interpretation (eg Bemberg, Maria Luisa -- Criticism and interpretation) |
| Motion picture producers and directors |
| Motion Picture Producers And Directors Latin America Dictionaries |
Also see:
Literature
Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture
The Cambridge history of Spanish literature
PQ6033 .C36 2004
Diccionario de literatura española e hispanoamericana. 1993 (2 volumes)
PQ6006 .D6
A Sourcebook for Hispanic Literature and Language. 1995
Z2695 .A2 B55
Hispanic Literature Criticism. 1994. (2 volumes)
PQ7081 .A1 H573
Film
International dictionary of films and filmmakers
A Guide to Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino made film and video
REF PN1995.9.L37 G85 1998
International dictionary of broadcasting and film
REF PN1990.4 .B64 2000
International motion picture almanac
REF PN1993 .I55
Women's companion to international film
REF PN1993.45 .W6 1994
Novel Resources
To find books about a novel, do a KEYWORD search in Chinook under the author's name and under the title of the work (use both).E.g. Roberto Bolaño AND 2666
To find more specific material do a SUBJECT search in Chinook to find relevant subject headings:
Use and Adapt these Subject Keywords |
| Spanish American Literature History And Criticism |
| Spanish American Literature Women Authors History And Criticism |
| Spanish American Literature Social Aspects |
Film or Movie Resources
To find books about a director, do an AUTHOR search in Chinook.
To find books about an director or a director's work, do a KEYWORD search in Chinook for the director's name.
To find books about a movie, do a TITLE search in Chinook
To find more specific material do a SUBJECT search in Chinook to find relevant subject headings
Cinematography Motion Pictures Latin America Film Adaptations History And Criticism
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If you are looking for articles on a particular topic, you can use many relevant databases that CU Libraries subscribes to. Some of the article databases only include citation information about the article, while others include access to the full-text of the document, usually in either PDF or HTML format.
The most relevant databases for Spanish Literature and Film are listed below. You can also try the Find Articles & More page where the databases are organized by subject/ discipline categories.
MLA international bibliography CU
Articles in literature, languages, linguistics, drama/theatre, and folklore from several thousand journals and series published worldwide. Also covers relevant monographs, working papers, proceedings, and bibliographies.
Hapi: Hispanic American periodicals index CU
Articles from scholarly journals and journals of academic interest with links to full text where available. Journals are published in and about Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil, and Hispanics/Latinos in the United States. Covers political, economic, and social issues as well as Latin American arts and literature
Video Tutorial: Searching HAPI
JSTOR CU
Articles from back issues of selected scholarly journals in history and other fields of the humanities and social sciences.
Project Muse CU
Full-text articles from over 300 high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from 60 scholarly publishers.
A collection of cross-searchable literature databases including the major crititcal world literature indexes, the MLA Bibliography, and ABELL.
HLAS online: Handbook of Latin American studies
Article and book citations about Latin America in the Humanities and Social Sciences. For Humanities, coverage includes: Art, History, Literature, Music, and Philosophy.
CU = Available to CU affiliates only.
How to connect from home: Remote access information.
Film and television literature index CU
A comprehensive bibliographic database covering the entire spectrum of television and film writing.
Abstracts and some full text covering diverse subject areas of the humanities.
MLA international bibliography CU
Articles in literature, languages, linguistics, drama/theatre, and folklore from several thousand journals and series published worldwide. Also covers relevant monographs, working papers, proceedings, and bibliographies.
Reviews
Interdisciplinary database that contains the full text of national, international, and regional news, newswires, transcripts, magazine articles, legal and business information, public opinion polls, and other sources.
Factiva CU
Provides worldwide full text coverage of local, regional, national, and international newspapers, trade publications, business newswires, press release wires, media transcripts, news photos, business-rich Web sites, investment analyst reports, market research reports, country and regional profiles, company profiles, historical market data.
CU = Available to CU affiliates only.
How to connect from home: Remote access information.
You may want to have a look at these websites for digital versions of texts, digitized primary sources and other information:
María Luisa Bemberg
De identidades: María Luisa Bemberg, filmografía y bibliografía
Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio
"Strawberry and Chocolate,' Ice Cream and Tolerance: Interviews with Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio."
Identidad gay en el cine latinoamericano reciente. Estrategias de omisión, circunloquio y lugares
comunes: Joel del Río
El gay y otros sujetos semejantes en el audiovisual cubano: Frank Padrón
José María Arguedas
Ciberayllu
General Sites
Voice of the Shuttle
A major academic resource for links to relevant websites.
For help with your research papers and presentations, contact:
Alison Hicks
Spanish and Portuguese Librarian
alison.hicks@colorado.edu
303 735-1709
For help with other questions, see:
Guides
Latin American Studies
Use this subject guide to locate librarian-selected resources for researching Latin America.
Spanish & Portuguese Language and Literature
Use this subject guide to locate librarian-selected resources for researching Spanish and Portuguese language and literature.
English and American Literature
A guide to resources in English & American Literature: Critical materials on authors; book reviews of novels, biographies, and critical works of literature; novels; plays; poems; short stories.
