English 399

Research in the Library

Cincinnati Public Library, 1874. www.theparisreview.tumblr.com .

Navigating the Twenty-First-Century Library Walk into a university library today and you might wonder, “Where are the books?” (Answer: they are still there, though many have been moved to off-site storage.) The card catalog has long since been replaced by electronic search engines, and print materials—books, journals, photographs, films, video and audio recordings—are increasingly being digitized. Today you don’t even need to enter the library to use many of its resources. But whether you visit in person or through a website, the library is an indispensable tool for research. Given the volume of data available on the Internet, you might think that libraries are no longer necessary—except, perhaps, for highly specialized research. We believe the opposite is true. Because so much information is now at our fingertips, libraries are more essential than ever when conducting research. Libraries not only let us access information but also ensure that our sources are reliable. Even if your public or academic library is comparatively small, it can serve as a portal to a much broader range of resources—research guides, reference works, and online databases—that extends the library’s reach. Of course, to benefit from these resources, you much learn to navigate the twenty-first century library.

Booth, Wayne C., et al. The Craft Of Research. Chicago UP, 2016. 65-66.

The Nexus

Planning Your Library Search

• Search Your Library Catalog • Prowl the Stacks • Follow Bibliographic Trails • Use Citation Indexing

Finding Specific Sources

• Ask a Librarian • Consult Reference Works • Explore Online Databases

1. OPAC 2. TexShare 3. Research Guides 4. Interlibrary Loan 5. Databases 6. Easy Search

Google “OWL MLA” or “OWL APA” for the OWL websites from Purdue

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

FINDING ARTICLES ABOUT STEINBECK’S GRAPES OF WRATH FROM THE TIME IT WAS PUBLISHED.

Readers Guide to Periodical Literature

FINDING REVIEWS OF STEINBECK’S GRAPES OF WRATH FROM THE TIME IT WAS PUBLISHED.

Book Review Digest

FINDING THE POEM FROM WHICH THE TITLE OF THE LOVELY BONES BY ALICE SEBOLD WAS TAKEN. (“I KNEW A WOMAN” BY THEODORE ROETHKE)

The Columbia Granger’s Index to Poetry in Anthologies

Deviantart.net

FINDING THE SHORT STORY FROM WHICH THE FILM “REAR WINDOW” WAS BASED. (“IT HAD TO BE MURDER” BY CORNELL WOOLRICH)

Short Story Index

Wikimedia Commons

Play Index FINDING THE PLAY FROM WHICH THE MUSICAL “OKLAHOMA” WAS ADAPTED. (“GREEN GROW THE LILACS” BY LYNN RIGGS)

Wikimedia Commons

FINDING REVIEWS OF THE FILM “GRAPES OF WRATH”

Film Review Index

FINDING ARTICLES ABOUT STEINBECK

Personal Name Index to the New York Times

FINDING ARTICLES ABOUT THE FILM “GRAPES OF WRATH”

New York Times Index

Locating Sources on the Internet

Here are some ways in which we use the Internet in our own research: 1. To get our bearings with respect to a new topic—regarding

everything we learn at this stage as provisional 2. To explore potential keywords to use in a more systematic

search 3. To remind ourselves of dates or facts—again remembering to

check these against more reliable sources 4. To locate the authors of sources whom we might wish to

contact: profiles of many scholars and researchers are available on college and university websites

5. To get a “ballpark” sense of what we are likely to find through a search of specialized databases by a quick search using Google Scholar

Booth, Wayne C., et al. The Craft Of Research. Chicago UP, 2016. 75.

Evaluating Sources for Reliability

1. Is the source published or posted online by a reputable press?

2. Was the book or article peer reviewed? 3. Is the author a reputable scholar? 4. If the source is available only online, is it sponsored by a

reputable organization? 5. Is the source current? 6. If the source is a book, does it have notes and a bibliography? 7. If the source is a website, does it include bibliographical

data? 8. If the source is a website, does it approach its topic

judiciously? 9. If the source is a book, has it been well reviewed? 10. Has the source been frequently cited by others?

Booth, Wayne C., et al. The Craft Of Research. Chicago UP, 2016. 78-79.

Online Sources

1. 1828 dictionary: http://webstersdictionary1828.com/

2. Nathaniel Hawthorne Collection of Papers: https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/nathaniel-hawthorne-collection-of-papers-1694-1931-bulk-1817-1864#/?tab=navigation

3. Digital Emerson: http://digitalemerson.wsulibs.wsu.edu/exhibits/show/context/parlor/nathaniel-hawthorne

Using Books for Academic Research

“Google Books is…an attempt to catalogue knowledge to a degree that arguably has not been available to mankind since the library of Alexandria…This projects, in a romanticized view, represented a new renaissance, bringing to light books that were inaccessible to most, unleashing them at a click of the mouse.”

Clarice Castro & Ruy de Queiroz (2013) “The Song of the Sirens,” Information, Communication & Society, 16:9, 1441.

http://www.newyorker.com/images/2007/02/05/p465/070205_r15903_p465.jpg

The third results leads to a useful entry in a 1968 book, along with a scanned image of the relevant section.

This article was not indexed in MLA under my search term.

Advanced Search

Limit to “Full view only” to get full text of out of copyright works.

A result for the full text of the original work is finally found on the third page of an advanced search limiting to full view.

Google Books is also useful for looking at introductions and first chapters.

The snippet view for Diana Taylor’s The Archive and the Repertoire includes the beginning through page 45, lacking 6-7, 13-14, 20-21, 27-28, 34-35, and 41-42.

Fact Check Everything

Databases do occasionally make mistakes.

“Earlier this year, Frank van Nueshoorn, a local history expert in Antwerp, revealed to the Belgian English language newsweekly, The Bulletin, convincing evidence that Shakespeare had lived in this town for six months as a young man of twenty-one.” “Poring over old documents in Antwerp archives, van Nueshoorn discovered that Shakespeare had worked in Antwerp as an apprentice with the English Merchant Adventurers in 1587. An entry in the ledgers of the Plantin publishing house revealed that on September 23, 1587 “Willem Shaakspeer” bought a copy of Christopher Plantin’s Polyglot Bible. The municipal archives for the same year report that “Shaakspeer” was fined by city magistrates for ‘bawdy behavior’ in a sailors’ tavern.”

What is plagiarism?

http://hsc.usf.edu/publichealth/email/images/plagiarism.gif

http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/pages/plagiarism/

Examples of Plagiarism from Princeton U contains three writing samples that plagiarize from the book The Playwright as Magician by Alvin B. Kernan.

From time to time this submerged or latent theater in Hamlet becomes almost overt. It is close to the surface in Hamlet’s pretense of madness, the “antic disposition” he puts on to protect himself and prevent his antagonists from plucking out the heart of his mystery. It is even closer to the surface when Hamlet enters his mother’s room and holds up, side by side, the pictures of the two kings, Old Hamlet and Claudius, and proceeds to describe for her the true nature of the choice she has made, presenting truth by means of a show. Similarly, when he leaps into the open grave at Ophelia’s funeral, ranting in high heroic terms, he is acting out for Laertes, and perhaps for himself as well, the folly of excessive, melodramatic expressions of grief. Alvin Kernan, The Playwright as Magician. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. 102-03.

Example one copies almost the entire paragraph word for word. The only original writing is the first sentence and a half and two words.

http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/pages/plagiarism/

1. Verbatim copying of large sections of writing

If you want to include Kernan’s entire paragraph verbatim, this is a better option:

Example two copies the idea and structure, but rewrites about half of the words. Even short passages should be in quotation marks.

http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/pages/plagiarism/

2. Copying individual elements

A better choice would be to minimize the quoted passages with original writing, and cite that the

main idea here is coming from Kernan.

http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/pages/plagiarism/

3. Improper paraphrasing

A better choice is to introduce Kernan early in the paragraph since all the ideas come from his

book, and give the citation at the end.