Senior Project Seminar

English 490: Senior Project

Blackboard

The Blackboard page for this course is now up and running; we'll use it for announcements, between-class discussions, and document-sharing, so check it regularly, especially on Tuesday nights and/or Wednesday mornings. If you're new to this technology, there's an Introduction to Blackboard for novices.

Online Research in Literary and Cultural Studies

There are many more reputable resources out there (reputability varies widely by topic) on the web than there used to be, and by fooling around with Google or some other Internet search engine, you may get lucky. As a serious scholar, though, you'll first want to make ample use of several indices and databases to which the library subscribes that catalog articles in popular periodicals and in scholarly anthologies and journals.

Crafting a productive and efficient search is something of an art: it can be challenging, frustrating, and time-consuming, and the strategies you employ may vary from database to database. But it's hugely satisfying when you succeed. Give yourself plenty of time, realize that you're on a learning curve, and don't be shy about consulting with your friendly neighborhood reference librarian (or with me).

Research and Documentation Online (Diana Hacker, Bedford/St. Martin's Press). Finding and documenting sources in the Humanities and other disciplines, with a sample paper in MLA format.
The Bedford Researcher (Mike Palmquist, Bedford/St. Martin's Press). Supercedes Bedford's "English Research Room," which was, unfortunately, a more useful collection of research aids than this. The new site nevertheless contains some good stuff, including advice on the research process, model research papers on various topics, and links to writers' resources and Online Writing Centers at universities around the country. See also Bedford's Composition site (see the section on "Student Resources").
HSU Library's OWLS: Online Workshops for Library Skills
HSU Library: from here you can (among other things) search the HSU catalog (Catalyst), the catalogs of other libraries around the world (WorldCat), and dozens of databases that index articles in journals, magazines and newspapers. The most useful databases for literary studies are (for articles in scholarly journals and anthologies):
- Academic Search,
- ArticleFirst,
- The Essay and General Literature Index,
- JSTOR,
- The MLA Bibliography,
- OmniFile, and
- Project Muse;

and (for articles in newspapers and popular periodicals):

Dow Jones Interactive (go to the "Publications Library")and
LexisNexis (search "Guided News Search," then "Arts & Sports News")

If a book, journal or periodical that you find is not owned by the HSU library, then you should request it through Inter-Library Loan.

In addition, here are a few handy online reference sources--which should be taken as supplements, not substitutes, for good print reference books, handbooks, and style manuals:

Finally: wondering what a successful Senior Project might look like? Here's an example from about five years ago.