Note Regarding the Research Component

ERNIE BLACK'S ENGLISH 102 RESEARCH PAGE

Note Regarding the Research Component for EN102

One of your essays this term must include a research component (worth 10% of your grade). On the syllabus this is weighted into your fiction essay, which is worth 30% of your grade. However, you may opt to incorporate the research component into either the poetry or drama essay, increasing its value to 30% and decreasing the fiction essay to 20%. The choice is yours. In any event, the research component will be factored into your grade as 10% of the total grade; if you do not complete the research component, a grade value of "0" will be recorded.

The research component requirement is as follows:

provide relevant background material on the author of your choice;
include critical comments about the work from at least two different critics;
comment on the critical references you use (see below);
use a minimum of five outside sources.

You should not simply "drop in" quotations from your sources, but interpret and comment upon them as befits your thesis; the research should be an integral part of your essay development (see p. 1513-20 of An Introduction to Literature for helpful guidelines). The research component should add at least 2 pages to your essay (standard length is 500 words or 2-3 double-spaced, type-written pages, so the research essay should be 750-1000 words or 4-5 pages), exclusive of the Works Cited page. Use the bibliographic form described on p. 1521-31 of An Introduction to Literature (MLA format; more extensive information is provided in both the Harbrace College Handbook and The Little, Brown Handbook and, for internet research, the bibliographic format detailed at <http://members.aol.com/qwendi/fisher.htm>, our English class website).

Sources

There are many options available to help guide your research efforts, particularly "Appendix B: Writing a Research Paper" in our textbook and, if you own a copy of The Little, Brown Handbook, Section 39, "Reading and Writing About Literature." The editors of our textbook say "A research paper is not the mere presentation of what a dozen scholars have already said about a topic; it is a thoughtful evaluation of the available evidence, and so it is, finally, an expression of what the author thinks the evidence adds up to" (1513).

Primary and Secondary Sources

Research materials are divided into two categories: primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are the literary works themselves ("Cat in the Rain" and "Young Goodman Brown," for example), and secondary sources are biographical, critical, and historical studies of an author's work, life, and times (click on the short story titles for secondary, on-line sources related to those stories for examples). For instance, one can critically discuss "The Yellow Wallpaper" objectively, as the story in itself, but whole new levels of meaning become clear when one examines the author's life (Gilman was an early feminist who personally experienced something very similar to the events in the story) and the times in which she wrote (Victorian medical practices, especially concerning women).

Locating Material

Our text provides an excellent discussion of locating material in print, which I will not reiterate here other than to mention a few research aids of particular value: MLA International Bibliography, American Literary Scholarship, and Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature (I have not as yet located these resources on-line without access restriction; I will update this info if and when I do). Additional sources include critical studies of particular authors, many of which are available at the Framingham Public Library. You can browse the shelves for interesting texts or target your search with the computer catalogs, searching for an author's name and criticism.

Our text does not provide any guidelines for on-line research, so visit our website for some useful suggestions (<http://members.aol.com/qwendi/fisher.htm>). The website also provides instructions for documentation of on-line references, avoiding plagiarism, and printing from Netscape on the Fisher College network. There are multiple links to internet 'search engines,' or websites which search the world wide web for you much as the computer card catalogs at the library search the library's holdings. Try different search engines to find the one that works best for you (as the old saying has it, "your mileage will vary"). Some sample links, with comments:

Literary Resources-American (Jack Lynch, University of Pennsylvania English Dept.): An extensive listing of on-line literary resources for American literature, part of the larger Literary Resources web site. Go here first for general literary searches.

Yahoo! Literary Searches (Part of Yahoo!): Geared for internet searches in literary fields.

Ernest M. Hemingway Home Page (University of Florida English Dept.): Extensive site dedicated to Hemingway and maintained by the University of Florida English Dept., with numerous links to critical essays, other sites, etc.

Nathaniel Hawthorne Home Page (Eric Eldred): Part of an elaborate website dedicated in part to literature; I know nothing about Eric Eldred but the site appears to be a good place to look for info regarding Hawthorne.

A Celebration of Women Writers (Mary Mark Ockerbloom, Editor, Department of Computational Science Carnegie Mellon University): Go here first for women writers-a most extensive listing, alphabetically, of women writers and hyperlinks to related sites on the 'net.

I will (randomly and periodically) add more links as appropriate, but these should get you started!

Evaluating Sources

Whether you are working with on-line or print sources, it is imperative that you evaluate the quality of those sources and not just grab the first five or six you find. There are four main points to keep in mind:

Depth of Coverage: Assess how thorough and extensive the critical work is; you are looking for sources which examine your subject in depth rather than superficially. Books are often the most comprehensive of sources, making up in depth of treatment what they may lack in current thought.
Currency: How up-to-date is the information? Journals, magazines, and internet sites are more apt to be current than books, even those recently published. However, in literary research, currency is most often less important that depth of coverage; Bradley's criticism of Shakespeare from 100 years ago is as valid today as it was then. Currency is of higher value in the social or natural sciences, where theories and case studies change rapidly. Yet new discoveries about an author's life may influence your study, as new developments in psychology may reflect on an author's treatment of characters in a story.
Bias: You cannot expect all, or even any, of your sources to be completely objective; and, if they were, they may be rather bland. However, you should identify a critic's bias because their bias may well affect their choice of information and how it is presented. For instance, a feminist bias would be helpful in examining the character of Miss Emily in "A Rose for Emily" or the narrator of "The Yellow Wallpaper," but, if the bias is overstrong you may find some aspects of the criticism misleading or misrepresentative, even if you are in agreement with them. Don't overlook a source because it is biased, but be aware of the bias, and, quite possibly, look for an opposite or alternative bias to offset it.
Variety of Viewpoints: All of the above considerations, especially bias, lead to the importance of this last point: consideration of a variety of viewpoints. If your paper relies overmuch on a single critic's view, no matter how strong that view is, your paper runs the risk of being one-sided. Of course, you are arguing a point of view or interpretation, so your thesis will assert a specific viewpoint accordingly, but in doing so you should consider several perspectives on your topic and be especially aware of any that run contrary to your position and call out for refutation. Oftentimes, effective refutation of an opposing viewpoint is one of the best techniques for supporting your own viewpoint.

This document last revised on 21 May 1997 by Ernest Black.