INCORPORATING RESEARCH AND AND SUBMITTING RESEARCH DRAFT/ use credible sources

Lesson 13 Overview and To Do List

Overview

Lesson 13 reviews the research process and shows students how to conduct scholarly research in preparation for the research essay assignment.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this lesson, the learner will be able to

· Synthesize research into an essay.

· Make and support text-based claims.

· Write a draft of a research essay.

To Do List

In order to successfully complete Lesson 13, please do the following:

Lesson Check List

Readings

· Read: textbook chapter 33 “The Literature Research Essay” – including the sample student essay

· Read: textbook chapter 34 “Quotation, Citation, and Documentation”

· Read: textbook chapter 35 ” Sample Research Essay”Read: The Research Essay Prompt and begin planning your essay

Activities

· Complete assignment: Literature Research Essay: Rough Draft

Literary Criticism: How to Find It: Introduction

This guide highlights useful information sources for students writing literary criticism.

·
INTRODUCTION

· Your English teacher has told you that you must pick a work of literature, find literary criticism about it, and then write a paper summarizing your research. He wants you to set the literary work in its context, meaning you need to say something about the author, her life, and why she wrote that particular literary work.

· How do you get started? Where do you find this stuff? This guide will help you get going!

·  

·
Choosing a Topic

· Tips which will make things go smoother for you as you begin the process.

·
Finding Books

· Search for books containing information on an author and particular works of literature.

·  

·
Finding Online Material

· Find biographical information about an author, as well as plot summaries, overviews, and some basic critical materials about the literary work you have chosen.

·
Citing Your Sources

· Get help with your in-text citations and works cited list.

·

· This guide is a great place to start finding literary criticism, but your campus librarian might have created a guide for a particuar instructor which could be helpful, too! Check below.

CHOSING A TOPIC

Whether literary research is easy or hard has a lot to do with the topic or literary work you have chosen to write about. The process does not have to be nerve-wracking and take forever. Here are some tips regarding topic selection to help make the research process as stress-free as possible. Always double-check with your instructor about topic selection if you have questions.

Tip One

It is easier to find criticism on works of authors from the past than on works by contemporary authors. It takes time for a body of critical writing about an author or literary work to grow.

Tip Two

It is easier, obviously, to find criticism on works by well-known authors than on works by those not so famous.

Tip Three

Larger works, like novels and plays, seem to attract more critical attention than individual short stories, essays, or poems.

Tip Four

Don’t finalize your topic too soon. Consider two or three works of literature, do some quick, preliminary searching for each title in the tools introduced in this research guide, and choose the one on which you can find the most information most quickly.  

Tip Five

Unless, of course, an obscure work or work by a contemporary author is something you are passionately interested in. Then ignore Tips One through Four and choose it. Reference librarians are available to help you.

ONLINE SOURCES/webpage below

The libraries provide access to many electronic reference works geared to literature. Using these will provide you with a great amount of information about an author, literary movement, or work of literature.

Bloom’s Literature (formerly Bloom’s Literary Reference Online) This link opens in a new window Features hundreds of essays examining the lives and works of great writers throughout history and the world, as well as thousands of critical articles by noted scholars. 

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more…

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LITERARY REFERENCE CENTER: This link opens in a new window A broad spectrum of information on thousands of authors and their works across literary disciplines and time frames. Includes plot summaries, literary criticism, author biographies, book reviews, poems, short stories, classic texts, author interviews, and more. 

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more…

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 LITERARY SOURCESVFROM GALE : This weblink opens in a new window

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includes Contemporary Authors Online, Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online, Gale Virtual Reference Library, Literature Criticism Online, Literature Resource Center (LRC), LitFinder, Scribner Writers, and Twayne’s Authors in one convenient interface.

more…

SALEM PRESS: CAREERS, HISTORY, LITERATURE AND SCIENCE :This link opens in a new window Provides access to the Critical Insights series, which contains both classic and contemporary literary criticism. You can browse by author, single works of literature, or themes. 

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more…

DON’T Use Wikipedia

Using Wikipedia is an easy and convenient way to begin gaining a working knowledge of a topic. If you choose to use it, be aware that there are two serious flaws with Wikipedia. The first is that anyone can write articles for it. You do not have to be an expert on a subject. The second is that anyone can edit the articles. Again, you do not have to be an expert on the subject. These two points raise doubts as to the accuracy of what you read there. Because of the problems regarding the authority of the writers of Wikipedia articles, gain what information you can from them, but do not use Wikipedia as a source for academic writing.

ACADEMIC SEARCH COMPLETE: This link opens in a new window

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This scholarly collection offers unmatched full-text coverage of information in many areas of academic study including, but not limited to: animal science, anthropology, area studies, astronomy, biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, ethnic & multicultural studies, food science & technology, general science, geography, geology, law, materials science, mathematics, mechanical engineering, music, pharmaceutical sciences, physics, psychology, religion & theology, veterinary science, women’s studies, zoology and many other fields.

more…

·

Finding BOOKS

· The quickest way to find all books with literary criticism 
about an author is to do a subject search for the author’s name and the word “criticism” as noted in the example below. Try it!
 

· Subject Search for Author
Ex: King, Stephen

· Top of Form

·  

· Bottom of Form

·

· The best way to find literary criticism 
about a particular piece of literature is to use the title of the work and the word “criticism”. If it is a very common piece of literature and there is a 
particular theme you want to explore, you can also include that theme. See the examples below and try it!

· Book Keyword Search
Ex: To Kill A Mockingbird AND criticism
Ex: To Kill A Mockingbird AND racism

· CITE SOURCES

· MLA 8TH ED.

· CITATIONS HENERATORS

·

·
Purdue OWL Guide to MLA Style

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities. This resource, updated to reflect the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (7th ed.) and the MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (3rd ed.), offers examples for the general format of MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the Works Cited page.

Created by the Trinity River Library to assist you with formatting a paper using the MLA style

Your English teacher has told you that you must pick a work of literature, find literary criticism about it, and then write a paper summarizing your research. He wants you to set the literary work in its context, meaning you need to say something about the author, her life, and why she wrote that particular literary work.

How do you get started? Where do you find this stuff? This guide will help you get going!

Choosing a Topic

Tips which will make things go smoother for you as you begin the process.

Finding Books

Search for books containing information on an author and particular works of literature.

Finding Online Material

Find biographical information about an author, as well as plot summaries, overviews, and some basic critical materials about the literary work you have chosen.

Citing Your Sources

Get help with your in-text citations and works cited list.

This guide is a great place to start finding literary criticism, but your campus librarian might have created a guide for a particuar instructor which could be helpful, too! Check below.

Literary Criticism: How to Find It: Introduction

This guide highlights useful information sources for students writing literary criticism.

· INTRODUCTION

· CHOOSING TOPIC

· ONLINE SOURCES

· FINDING BOOKS

· CITE SOURCES

Your English teacher has told you that you must pick a work of literature, find literary criticism about it, and then write a paper summarizing your research. He wants you to set the literary work in its context, meaning you need to say something about the author, her life, and why she wrote that particular literary work.

How do you get started? Where do you find this stuff? This guide will help you get going!

Choosing a Topic

Tips which will make things go smoother for you as you begin the process.

Finding Books

Search for books containing information on an author and particular works of literature.

Finding Online Material

Find biographical information about an author, as well as plot summaries, overviews, and some basic critical materials about the literary work you have chosen.

Citing Your Sources

Get help with your in-text citations and works cited list.

This guide is a great place to start finding literary criticism, but your campus librarian might have created a guide for a particuar instructor which could be helpful, too! Check below.

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/writing_about_literature/literature_topics_and_research.html

Literature Topics and Research

WHAT KINDS OF TOPICS ARE GOOD ONES?

The best topics are ones that originate out of your own reading of a work of literature, but here are some common approaches to consider:

· A discussion of a work’s characters: are they realistic, symbolic, historically-based?

· A comparison/contrast of the choices different authors or characters make in a work

· A reading of a work based on an outside philosophical perspective (Ex. how would a Freudian read 
Hamlet?)

· A study of the sources or historical events that occasioned a particular work (Ex. comparing G.B. Shaw’s 
Pygmalion with the original Greek myth of Pygmalion)

· An analysis of a specific image occurring in several works (Ex. the use of moon imagery in certain plays, poems, novels)

· A “deconstruction” of a particular work (Ex. unfolding an underlying racist worldview in Joseph Conrad’s 
Heart of Darkness)

· A reading from a political perspective (Ex. how would a Marxist read William Blake’s “London”?)

· A study of the social, political, or economic context in which a work was written — how does the context influence the work?

HOW DO I START RESEARCH?

· The Internet

Once you have decided on an interesting topic and work (or works), the best place to start is probably the Internet. Here you can usually find basic biographical data on authors, brief summaries of works, possibly some rudimentary analyses, and even bibliographies of sources related to your topic.

· The library

The Internet, however, rarely offers serious direct scholarship; you will have to use sources found in the library, sources like journal articles and scholarly books, to get information that you can use to build your own scholarship-your literary paper. Consult the library’s on-line catalog and the MLA Periodical Index. Avoid citing dictionary or encyclopedic sources in your final paper.

HOW DO I USE THE INFORMATION I FIND?

The secondary sources you find are only to be used as an aid. 
Your thoughts should make up most of the essay. As you develop your thesis, you will bring in the ideas of the scholars to back up what you have already said.

For example, say you are arguing that 
Huck Finn is a Christ figure; that’s your basic thesis. You give evidence from the novel that allows this reading, and then, at the right place, you might say the following, a paraphrase:

According to Susan Thomas, Huck sacrifices himself because he wants to set Jim free (129).

If the scholar states an important idea in a memorable way, use a direct quote.

“Huck’s altruism and feelings of compassion for Jim force him to surrender to the danger” (Thomas 129).

Either way, you will then link that idea to your thesis.

FIND AN ARTICLE IN SCHOOL DATABASE

Literary Research Essay: Rough Draft

Assignment Overview

For this exercise, you complete and submit a properly formatted rough draft of your essay:

A one-page rough draft includes:

· An introductory with paragraph 
WITH a clear thesis statement

· Three topic sentences

· One fully developed BODY paragraph.

Here is a sample rough draft: 

ROUGH DRAFT SAMPLE

S (This is the scoring rubric for the final draft.  I am putting it here for reference)

Guidelines

Your submission SHOULD NOT be longer than a page (it will be okay if it goes over some).  The point of the page limitation is to ensure that proper assignment requirements are being followed.  Please DO NOT submit a fully completed essay.  Follow the sample given.

submit a rough draft of your essay as detailed in the assignment sheet located at the end of Lesson 12 and attached here:

LITERATURE RESEARCH ESSAY-CRITICAL APPROACHES

Literature Research Essay Assignment
Instructions
The purpose of this paper is to apply at least one literary critical approach to literature we
studied this semester. You will select one or two short stories or poems assigned in Modules 2-
11 to be the focus of your literary research and analysis.
Select from the following types of critical approaches:
• Biographical
• Historical
• Feminist
• Gender
• Psychoanalytic
• Postcolonial
Note: There are many more critical approaches than the ones listed here. Any of the critical
approaches defined in our textbook could also work.
For this essay you will:
1. Develop a thesis that connects an aspect of your chosen literature to at least one critical
approach.
2. Support your thesis by supplying pertinent evidence from the literature AND evidence
from at least 3 valid secondary sources.
Length:
This paper should be at least 4 full pages of text. This means that the last line of your essay
should hit the last line of page 4 (this does not include the Works Cited page).
Some Topic Examples:
• Biographical and Historical approach to “Where Are You Going, Where Have You
Been?”: Examine Joyce Carol Oates’ inspiration for the story. (She wrote the story after
reading about a serial killer.)
• Postcolonial approach to “A Wall of Fire Rising” by Edwidge Danticat: Poverty and
limited opportunities in Haiti prevent Guy from realizing his dreams. (Biographical and
Historical approaches could also work with this story.)
• Feminist approach to Trifles by Susan Glaspell and “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” by
Adrienne Rich: The main characters in both represent negative consequences of
oppressive marriages.
• Psychoanalytic approach to “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman:
Symbols reflect the character’s declining mental health. Gilman’s own experience with
depression inspired this story.

Source Details:
You are required to use and document a minimum of four sources in this paper.
• One of these sources should be the primary text(s) (short story or poem) you are
discussing.
• The other three (or more) sources should be secondary sources in which scholars or
experts have written their interpretations and analyses of the texts or topics that are
relevant to your argument.
• Sources must be valid for college level writing. Journal articles from the library
databases should be used.
• Additional sources can be any type (website, documentary, personal interview, etc.) as
long as they are relevant and credible. Do NOT use Wikipedia, Ask.com, About.com,
Sparknotes.com, etc.
Format:
Your paper and the Works Cited page MUST be submitted in correct MLA format.
If your writing contains ANY plagiarism (if any source information is not credited to the source it came
from), you will be given a ZERO on the paper.
Final Tips:
• Don’t use summary any more than you need to in order to make a point; assume your
readers have already read the text; summary should only be used as support and for
clarity.
• Don’t use 1st person “I” or “we” or 2 nd person “you” or “your” in your writing.
• Do make sure your work stays focused on discussing and proving the main argument
made in the paper’s thesis.
• Do make sure your work is in MLA format and your sources follow MLA guidelines.
• Do proofread and edit carefully!

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