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Off-Campus Connection
Most of the Library's online resources are available to you from anywhere off campus.
See UL Proxy Accounts for more information.
Welcome
This guide recommends key resources for finding and using information while conducting research in French Studies.
Organizing your search for information:
- Prepare your research!
- Choose your sources
- Consult the catalogue
- and/ or consult databases
- Find and organize your references
- Evaluate the references
- Present the references in your work
Library Instruction
To learn more about the library and its resources and how you can exploit them to your advantage, register in the Research Skills Tutorial on D2L. There are several sections in the tutorial with a short quiz at the end of each; at the end you will receive a Certificate of Completion. Many professors require you to take this tutorial--and once you finish it, you can save your certificate to reprint as often as necessary.
In the fall, the library hosts live Orientation tours as well as Zotero classes which you can sign up for at the library's entrance, and even after the formal schedule is finished, we are very happy to put on special classes at the request of at least 5 students. If you would like to arrange a special class, or you think your course would benefit from some in-class library instruction, please ask your professor to contact the librarian responsible for your faculty to set up some sessions.
Subject Librarian
Leïla Saadaoui, M.S.I.
Coordinator, French Language Services
By appointment:
Courriel : lsaadaoui@laurentian.ca
Twitter : Biblio Laurentienne
More Help
In the library: The Library User Assistance Desk to your immediate left as you enter the library is a good place to start.
By email: Email the librarian responsible for your faculty for a reply during regular working hours.
By telephone: 705-675-4800, or toll free at 1-800-661-1058, ext. 2
By chat: With our "Ask the Library" service. For more information, see About Ask a Librarian.
For Distance Education students: Telephone: 1-800-661-1058, ext. 2 or email: bibdesmaraislib@laurentian.ca
Get Started
Encyclopædia Universalis
- Multi-disciplinary francophone resource
- Navigate through the sections (particularly humanities and social sciences) or research your subject (ex. adolescence, community, etc).
Subject-specific Encyclopedias and Dictionaries
- Encyclopædia Britannica Online
- International encyclopedia of linguistics
- John Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism
- Dictionnaire des auteurs de langue française en Amérique du Nord (online)
- Encyclopaedia Universalis (online)
- Lexique des termes littéraires (online)
- Dictionnaire culturel en langue française
- Dictionnaire de critique littéraire
- Dictionnaire des expressions et tournures calquées sur l'anglais
- Dictionnaire des grandes œuvres de la littérature française
- Dictionnaire des termes littéraires
- Dictionnaire du littéraire
- Dictionnaire du roman
- Dictionnaires français et littératures québécoise et canadienne-francaise
- Dictionnaire mondial des littératures
- Encyclopédie de la littérature
- Glossaire bilingue des termes littéraires : français-anglais
- La littérature française de A à Z
- Linguistique et sciences du langage
- Nouveau dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences du langage
Recommended Reading
- Introduction aux littératures francophones (online)
- Introduction à la littérature franco-ontarienne
- Parcours québécois : introduction à la littérature du Québec (preview in Google Books)
- Introduction à la linguistique contemporaine
- De la linguistique aux sciences du langage (preview in Google Books)
- Le français canadien parlé hors Québec (preview in Google Books)
Quick Tips on Preparing For Research
Before you start:
Understand the key terms you may be using as well as the general area that interests you;
Think about ways to narrow your topic, making it as specific as possible (unless you have been given a specific topic to research);
Create a thesis statement.
- Choose and shape you topic, using:
- Language dictionaries
- Subject-specific dictionaries
- General and subject-specific encyclopedias
- Thesauri for your discipline (often related to a database)
- To narrow your topic, ask the 5 W's and how questions:
- Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
- Choose your concepts and your limiters:
- Which terms are related to your subject?
- What are its synonyms?
- Which terms should be excluded from your research project?
- Having a list of concepts and limits prepared will facilitate your research.
- Depending on the language of the resources, create a list of terms in both French and English.
Dictionaries
French language Dictionaries
- Grand Robert de la langue française (online)
- Trésor de la langue française (online)
- Dictionnaires d'autrefois (online)
- Multidictionnaire de la langue française
- Dictionnaire Hachette
- Dictionnaire historique de la langue française
- Le Petit Larousse
- Dictionnaire des expressions et locutions
- Dictionnaire des synonymes, nuances et contraires
Terminologies
Bilingual Dictionaries French-English
Get Books
Organization of the Library’s Collection
The Library of Congress Classification System is used to organize:
- Periodicals (PER - 2nd floor)
- Reference documents (REF - 2nd flood)
- Books (3rd floor)
Documents for your discipline are generally found in the following classes:
P 40-381 : Linguistics
PC 2001-3761 : French language
PN : Literature (General)- Literary history
PQ 1-3999 : French Literature
PS 8401 - 8599 : Quebec and French-Canadian literature
WorldCat
The Catalogue
The catalogue is your primary tool for finding:
- Books (in print and online)
- Official publications
- Reference works (dictionaries, encyclopedias)
- Titles of journals (and not titles of articles from those journals)
- Documents from the Archives
- Videos (DVD’s and online)
- Documents on microfilm
present in our print and online collections (from the J.N. Desmarais Library., but also from other campus libraries and resources centres).
The interface of the catalogue is available in French and in English.
The French titles are indexed in French and the English titles are indexed in English. Bilingual documents are indexed in both languages.
Under the advanced search tab, it is possible to add language filters, which will only retrieve documents in the language selected.
More on searching the Catalogue is available in Module 5 of the Research Skills Tutorial on D2L.
Finding Theses and Dissertations
You may search for Master's theses or Ph.D dissertations through:
- Dissertations & Theses @ Laurentian University
- The catalogue
- LU Zone, Laurentian's Research Repository
- Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest)
- Theses Canada
- DART-Europe E-Theses Portal
E-book Collections
Not all e-books are indicated in the catalogue. You can equally find them through our Electronic Book Collections.
The following collections contain e-books relevant to linguistics and literature:
- Ebook Central (more than 1300 titles in French)
- EBSCO eBook Collection
- MyiLibrary
- Scholar Portal Books
See also :
- ABU : La bibliothèque universelle
- ADEL : Auteurs dramatiques en ligne
- ARTFL Project (from the University of Chicago)
- Digital Collection (from the BANQ)
- Gallica (from the Bibliothèque nationale de France)
Inter-Library Loans
The inter-library loans system, RACER, allows you to borrow documents and obtain articles from other libraries across Canada and from around the world.
Fill out this form to register for the service.
Get Articles
Getting Articles @ Laurentian
In any database, when you see an article that interests you, click on it and, unless the article is available within the database itself, within the record you will see an image that says "Get it @ Laurentian":
When you click on that, you will arrive at a menu which will lead to an electronic copy of the article you want, or, if not available electronically, to Laurentian's catalogue which will allow you to check if the article is available in print in the library, and if not, to a final link which allows you to order the item through Interlibrary loan.
Some Internet Portals
- ABU : la bibliothèque universelle
- Association des auteures et auteurs de l'Ontario français
- L'Île : l'infocentre littéraire des écrivains québécois (see also Écrivains québécois - dossiers L'Île dans Eureka.cc)
- The Linguistic List
Quick Tips
In order to find articles from scholarly journals, use the databases.
The majority of the databases include access to the full text of articles.
Note that for a number of databases, you will need to login via the proxy server using your LaurentianID in order to access the resources off-campus.
- Start your research by using keywords that express your topic.
- Use boolean operateurs (AND, OR, NOT) to expand or reduce the number of results.
To broaden the number of results:
To narrow the number of results:
- Explore the bibliographic records of results in order to find more relevant articles.
Journals for French Studies
Journals relating to French studies are listed throughout the catalogue with the subject "Littérature française périodiques", and the subject "Langue française périodiques".
Journals in English are listed with the subject "French literature Periodicals", and the subject "French language Periodicals".
There are also printed journals as well as electronic journals.
E-Journals
Electronic journals in language and linguistics, and in literature are listed through the list A to Z E-Journals. You may search for a specific title in the list, which will permit you to access the full text.
Get Films
Find Videos in the Catalogue
The catalogue is an important tool for finding videos at Laurentian.
Under the advanced search tab, it is possible to add the filter “video format”, in order to select a desired format.
You can equally browse the catalogue using the following lists:
Need a Film Not in Laurentian's Online Film Collections?
Consult: Watmedia (Provincial Multi-media Catalogue). Material held by Laurentian may be signed out in the library. To order a film not available at Laurentian, please email LUFilmLibrary@laurentian.ca and specify the date(s) you require the item.
Questions: Please contact Ashley Thomson who manages the Intrafilm Project.
Citing Sources
Tips
We cite sources to acknowledge the work of others, as well as to avoid academic dishonesty or plagiarism.
- Present your bibliography at the end of your work
- Cite your sources while writing
- Follow the model specified by your professor or the discipline
- Make use of the style guide
ZOTERO
Zotero is a free, web-based citation manager that allows you to:
- Directly import references from article databases, the library catalogue, e-book collections, etc.
- Manage and organize your references.
- Create a bibliography.
- Share your references with others
- Add in-text citation and a bibliography directly into your assignment
Getting started with Zotero:
- Sign up for library workshops when available.
- View Quick Start Guide (video) or Tutorials (videos)
- Consult one of Zotero's own User Guides or McMaster University's Quick Start Guide or the Zotero Guide by Ontario Tech University
Style
APA style (American Psychological Association) is the style most often used in your discipline. APA Style uses the Author-Date system: the citations in the text include the name of the author and the date.
Always follow the specification of your professors, as there can be variations, most notably, norms adopted in French.
- APA Style, by the American Psychological Association
- Citer selon les normes de l'APA, par l'Université de Montréal
- Publication manual of the American Psychological Association, 6e ed. (at the information desk)
- APA Style Blog, by the American Psychological Association
- DOI and URL Flowchart, by the American Psychological Association
Plagiarism and Academic Integrity at Laurentian University
Laurentian University’s policy on Academic Integrity for Students, december 2010.
See also the page dedicated to copyright at Laurentian University and module 11 from the Research Skills Tutorial on D2L.