ENGL 2332: World Literature I
Lone Star College - Kingwood Library
Research Guide
The best library assignments are those that use a variety of resources including books, newspaper and journal articles, Internet sites, and even videos or audiocassettes. We encourage you to use a variety of sources for your paper. Books should provide some of the best information for literary and historic topics. Your LSC Student ID is also your library card (on the back). If you are a distance learning student, you may apply for a library card and request materials online. The library card barcode number allows remote (off-campus) access to the databases. In those databases you will find scholarly articles from literary journals. We hope you will take full advantage of the many resources our libraries offer.
World Literature I covers the time period from the Ancient World through the Renaissance.
Assignment for Defense (Research) project
Students will write a defense paper over Dante's Divine Comedy. They will defend the work against the following three questions/attacks:
- Why should I read something so old and archaic?
- Why is it important?
- What's in it for me?
In the arguments/defense, the papers will be in three parts that comment on the following:
- Why should I read it? Students will research Dante's biography, time period in history, culture, society, religion, politics, etc. What you research and what you include in your paper will be contingent upon your answers to the other two questions; that is, how you answer them, because, of course, you won't be able to research all of the above and include all of it in your paper.
- Why is it important? Students will perform their own original literary analysis of the work and support your views, expand on them, with published, scholarly literary analysis.
- What's in it for me? Students will connect the previous two questions to the current history, culture, society, religion, politics, etc. That is, you'll be connecting questions one and three - and the connection is your literary analysis and your own views - what you write about in question three, of course, will mirror that of question one. The current history, etc., that you'll write about and connect the work to, as well, will come from you - your own interpretations and your own life. So you connect the work - your analysis and your research of it - to you and life as it is now, as you see it.
All three arguments (answers to questions) should weave together into a unified thesis/theme.
Requirements:
- Your paper will follow MLA format in both style and citation/documentation.
- You must use in your paper - that is cite and document - at least 6 secondary sources. (Note: Dante's Divine Comedy in our text is not a secondary source; it is your primary source, and so you'll have at minimum, 7 sources listed on your works cited page.)
- And of those 6, at least 3 must be literary criticism: that is, an essay from a journal or book written by a literary critic.
BOOKS - for overview, topic ideas, to define the historical period
| Librarian Talk . . .About Books!
Your LSC Student ID is also your library card (on the back). If you are a distance learning student, you can apply online for a paper library card. Use your card to:
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Books about the time period you wish to study help place the literary work in the context. Here are a few suggested reference works:
- REF CB361 .B43 The Encyclopedia of the Renaissance.
- REF D114 .D5 Dictionary of the Middle Ages.
- REF DC33.2 .M44 Medieval France an Encyclopedia.
- REF DC59 .C55 Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean.
Books about the literature of the time period will lead you to critical analysis of the literary work you are researching.
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REF PN50 .L574 Literature and Its Times, v. 1
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REF PN86 .L53 Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800
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REF PN523 .W67 World Literature Criticism
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REF PN610 .C53 Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism
When you have chosen your particular topic, there are books on specific authors, literary titles and types of literature which contain information, as well as essays about the work or author and in depth analysis of the works. Use the library catalog to locate those books. Keywords for your search will be specific to your literary work. For example, if you are researching The Prince, useful search terms may include: Machiavelli, prince, political ethics, political power, Machiavellian, political aesthetics, Italian city states, Renaissance literature.
DATABASES - finding scholarly or peer reviewed articles from literary journals.
| Librarian Talk . . . About Finding Journal and Newspaper Articles!
Electronic databases are purchased by the libraries for your research use. To find articles in newspapers and journals, letters, reference books, illustrations, photographs and more, use your updated library card to login to the following databases. If you find an interesting article that is not full-text, please give the correct bibliographic information to our Reference Librarians and they will see that you get the article. They will need full bibliographic information - and your name and address. Send your phone number as well, so they can contact you if they need to. There is some overlap of articles in the following databases. However, we encourage you to use more than one. All are excellent sources for this topic. Use keywords appropriate to your topic and literary work. HINT: For a full list of article databases, go to Research Databases and use your library card for login. |
Electronic access to peer reviewed and scholarly articles is offered in the databases listed below. Use your library barcode to login from your home computer.
JSTOR | Print or save full-text articles from high quality scholarly journals, generally from older issues. Use the Advanced Search page for the most productive searches. Choose 
"article" as a limit to remove book reviews from your results list.
Project Muse | Begin your search by entering the title of the novel in the search box in quotation marks. Use the limiters on the left side of the screen to focus your search to Journals, full access (complete articles), or research areas. You can Modify a search to add keywords from your thesis - click on the + mark to add search boxes. This database is also entirely scholarly, so all articles will be of the appropriate academic level for your research.
This additional database offers overviews and information on the history of the period as well as access to some of the reference material listed in sources above.
Literature Resource Center | Includes most of the information in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800 and Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. This database also has links to scholarly journal articles. Use the Advanced search page for the most productive searches.
Films on Demand | This database contains films on many subjects. Two particularly good segments on the Divine Comedy are:
Dante's The Divine Comedy is an evocation of all the sights and sounds and thoughts of the Middle Ages. The literary work travels from the depths of Hell to the mountain of Purgatory to Paradise itself. (4:02 min). And Dante's Cosmos which explains that Dante's cosmos is based on spheres and circles. There are four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. Dante is headed towards bliss, and Beatrice, and God. Dante moves from sphere to sphere simply by looking into the eyes of Beatrice. (4:35 min)
INTERNET - Using Internet pages for your research
| Librarian Talk . . . About the Internet!
The Internet will be a wonderful source of original documents. Browse the sites we have suggested below. Remember, you do want to find reputable sites. Look at:
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The Internet can be a valuable source of original documents and overviews of history. Evaluate web pages for scholarly content. Do not use a web page if you are doubtful of the source. Consider the accuracy of the information, the source of the information, the credentials of the author, and the relevance of the information to your research. If you are in doubt, ask your instructor.
Selected Internet pages, certainly not everything, which is available. These are very good examples of some of the best the Internet offers.
The Labyrinth: resources for medieval studies from Georgetown University. This site offers information about the Medieval world.
Florilegium Urbanum this site offers a view of life in Medieval England from Stephen Alsford, Librarian and researcher from the Canadian Museum of 
Civilization.
Danteworlds presented by University of Texas, this site is an integrated multimedia journey--combining artistic images, textual commentary, and audio recordings--through the three realms of the afterlife (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise) presented in Dante's Divine Comedy.
SUPPORT: Getting Help for your Assignment
Citing Sources Using the Library MLA Style Guide | Lone Star College-Kingwood Library Guide. Examples of both paper and electronic citations.
Avoiding Plagiarism | Excellent Information and guide on how to avoid plagiarism from the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue University.
University of Texas Copyright Crash Course | This helpful guide on copyright is suggested by Lone Star College-Kingwood Teaching and Learning Center.
LSC - Kingwood Learning Center | Offers tutoring services for Lone Star College-Kingwood students in most subjects as well as other services.
Page written by B. Bradley, | revised 5/2012, B. Bradley.
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