Smith College English Majors Research Skills

What Should English Majors Know?

By the time of their graduation all majors in English language and literature should understand how literary scholars conduct research and how they then communicate the results of their work to colleagues. One way of describing this process is “information literacy” – i.e., the ability to conceptualize what literary information is needed combined with the skills necessary to locate, evaluate, and use this information effectively and ethically. (please refer to the final section of this page).

Writing Intensive Classes

Students who have taken writing intensive classes should already have learned at least the following skills:

• To identify the kind of information -- biographical, historical, literary -- they need, and to know where to find it. In other words, they should be familiar with various electronic resources, particularly the MLA Bibliography, and some reference books. They should also be aware that web search engines are often inadequate for scholarly research.
• To be able to evaluate the reliability of a source. Who wrote it? When? Who published it?
• To know how and when to acknowledge and cite their sources in MLA format.

Beginning English majors

Students should build upon and expand these skills:

• They must learn to back up what they say by citing both their primary source and reliable secondary sources.
• They must learn to use basic reference sources like the following:
  

  Source	Call Number in Neilson
  Oxford English Dictionary	ref PE 1625 .O87 1987
  Dictionary of Literary Biography	ref PN 451 .D53
  Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory & Criticism	ref PN 81 .J55 2005
  New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics	ref PN 1021 .N39 1993
  Oxford Companion to English Literature	ref PR 19 .O94 2000
  Oxford Companion to American Literature	ref PS 21 .H3 1995
  Oxford Companion to African American Literature	ref PS 153 .N5 O96 1997

• They should also be familiar with literary manuals like Chris Baldick's The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (ref PN 41 .C67 2001). Paul Fussell's book Poetic Meter and Poetic Form (PE 1050 .F78 1979) give much more detailed and sensitive attention to the significance of the poetic forms poets choose.
• They should know how to locate and use standard databases like the following:
  

  Resources	SCL Website Locations
  Five College Library Catalog WorldCat	1. Quick Search on the libraries' homepage 2. English subject page: English / Books & Media 3. Smith College Libraries Research (links to library catalog and other resources) 4. Research / Find Books & Media page
  MLA Bibliography 1963+ JSTOR (back issues) ABELL 1920+ Essay & General Literature Index Literature Online (LION)	1. English subject page: English / Articles 2. A-Z list: Research / Databases by Title 3. Libraries homepage Quick Search (type MLA Bibliography, JSTOR, etc.) 4. Research / Find Articles page (for JSTOR and other full-text article databases)

• They should be prepared to alter search terms to find materials when their first try is unsuccessful.

Seminars

Advanced students should be able to:

• Document their sources consistently, in correct MLA format.
• Use conflicting interpretations as part of a nuanced and substantive argument of their own.
• Identify important articles that have been part of ongoing discussions of a text or group of texts.

In Which Classes Should Students Learn These Skills, and How Will They be Assessed?

Some English courses at the 100 and 200 levels entail literary research, often including visits to the library and meetings with Reference Librarians. All 300-level seminars require research, making use of the sources and skills outlined above.

Ethical Issues

Using someone else's words, ideas, or arguments without acknowledgment is plagiarism. This is a serious violation of the College's Honor Code. Students should learn to distinguish between "received knowledge" and original work, between ideas that have often been repeated and ideas that are new. They must always identify and acknowledge their sources for everything except "received knowledge," such as dates and facts found in many encyclopedias and dictionaries.

May 5, 2006