English 701: Course Objectives

 

As the title "Methods and Materials of Research" suggests, the course's objectives are two-fold but overlapping:

 

1.        Methods: To learn how to answer typical questions asked by researchers in English literature.

2.        Materials: To become familiar with  typical research materials used by researchers in English literature.

 

As an introduction to literary research at the graduate level, this course focuses on representative, useful, recurrent research methods and materials.  It does not attempt to offer a detailed examination of analytic bibliography or other highly specialized sub-disciplines. The exercises, written assignments, and examinations address the kinds of questions that every researcher in English literature faces repeatedly.

 

Typical Research Problems                      Typical Research Materials

 

Find a standard edition of                              Library catalogs, reviews, review articles,

an author's works                                         national bibliographies, encyclopedias,

                                                                    textbooks

 

Find a standard biography                             Encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries,

                                                                    reviews, surveys of research

 

Find the location of a manuscript                   Annotated editions, guides to scholarly

                                                                    collections, Web sites, WorldCat

 

Find an authoritative treatment of a                Periodical indexes, bibliographies of

topic                                                             bibliographies

 

Find and use a specialized reference              Annotated bibliographies, reference

tool                                                              guides, concordances, full-text databases

 

Identify a leading authority on a topic             Reviews, review articles, surveys of research

or author

 

Find or compile a topic bibliography              Periodical indexes, annotated bibliographies

 

Evaluate a scholar                                         Biographical reference works, reviews

 

Find accurate historical information                Periodical indexes, newspapers

 

Study the meaning, etymology, and                Specialized dictionaries

history of individual words

 

Evaluate a standard reference work               Reviews, indexes to reviews

 

Locate a copy of a specific periodical            Periodical indexes, OhioLINK Central

article                                                           Catalog, OCLC database

 

Find specialized material, including                Internet and Web resources, on-line reference

multimedia                                                    resources

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