Research Journal

Keeping an Online Research Journal

In this wiki, you can edit pages to keep track of your progress as you research your paper. Members from your workshop group can leave feedback by posting comments. Use this space to toss out ideas, share potential resources, and arrange meetings with your group.

Working with Ideas

• Many people brainstorm or freewrite to develop ideas. You can edit this page to jot down any ideas that you might have while considering potential topics. There aren't any wrong answers. If you have a workshop group, you can give them the address of this wiki so that they can leave comments that might help you define your project.

• Write down which idea on which you'd like to focus.

• Consider what direction you want to take the research/paper. Edit this page by including your paper's tentative thesis.

• Consider what kinds of research you might need to support and develop your ideas. For instance, you might need sources on social history if your project discusses the depiction of the social structure in a historical novel, or you may need biographies if your paper will draw upon the author's personal life.

• Depending on what kind of research you may need, determine whether you will look for books, articles, historical newspapers, or other kinds of information. Consult with a librarian to select a database or to search the library's catalog.

Search Strategies

• Keywords: Find three words that describe your topic; try to include all aspects of your topic. There are no right answers; look for the words that summarize your ideas most precisely.

• Searching for books: To find books, search the library's catalog. If you start with a keyword search, you might scroll down the subject headings and click on an appropriate one. You will be redirected a list of resources that share that subject; this kind of searching may result in a more precise list of resources.

• Searching for articles: If you're looking for article, you might start with the MLA Bibliography. This bibliography indexes literary criticism and is one of the most important resources in literature studies. Other popular databases in the humanities include Academic Premier and the Arts and Humanities Index. Contemporary Literary Criticism and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism also may be useful.

• Searching for background information: If you need an overview of an author or literary period, The Dictionary of Literary Biography and the Cambridge Companions to literature from a specific time may be useful. You might also try looking at Contemporary Authors and the introductions in Norton Anthologies.

Sources

In this area, add the list of resources that you are planning to use when working on this paper. Explain how each resource will contribute to the development of your thesis and your analysis of your area of inquiry. You might also provide a brief notation as to how you plan on using that source in your paper or why you chose this book over some others. If you include everything that you'll need to write a bibliography, you'll save yourself a lot of time in the long run.

• Resource #1
• Resource #2
• Resource #3
• Resource #4

Contact a librarian

Come by the reference desk at Knight library or make an appointment to meet individually with a librarian to discuss your work. We'd love to talk with you!

Good luck with your research!