Course Links
Lesson Plans
Course Documents
Links
Secondary Sources

Quick Links
Library Links
Citing Sources

American Lit I
Home Page

 

 

Adding Sources to your essay

Below you'll find both suggestions for incorporating secondary sources into your work and a few links to sources.
General Information on Sources

Where to Find Secondary Sources

First, remember that your first draft should generally focus on the primary source (story/novel itself). Thus, you should refer to outside sources only after you have figured out for yourself what you want to say about the literary work.

Quick Hits
Use these books for quick information on a particular topic or author. Generally, you wouldn't use these in a research paper -- but if you do, you'd need to quote and cite them.

  • The Reader's Companion to World Literature.
    Excellent basic reference book: belongs on every English Major's bookshelf. Covers American, English, and world literature. Though dated, it's a great place to get an overview on a literary work, figure, or concept.
  • Bennett's Reader's Encyclopedia ( 803 B465 reference section)
    A fine compendium of terms, phrases, authors, and works. Short (paragraph or two) entries provide you with a quick overview.
  • Encyclopedia of American Literature (810.3 E563 reference section) Short entries on authors, movements, and topics in American literature.
  • A Handbook to Literature ( 803 H236 reference section)
    Strictly definitions and terms.

Reference Books

These should be your first choice. The essays included in these volumes are generally short and to the point -- perfect for the busy undergraduate. These are found in the reference section, 1 st floor.

  • American History Through Literature 1820-1870 - 810.9358 A512H V. 1
    As the title suggests, it's a great source for a cultural view of literature. 
  • The Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century Vol. 1-3. 973.5 E564U V. 1
  • Encyclopedia of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era Vol. 1-3 973.803 E564GA V. 1
  • Dictionary Of Literary Biography Documentary Series: An Illustrated Chronicle 810.9 D554
  • Literature and Its Times. 809 L776 (reference section, 1 st floor)
    A great source for historical and cultural backgrounds on a variety of texts.
  • The Reader's Companion to American History. by Eric Foner. 973.03 R285 1991.
    Great source for quick historical background
  • Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism (NCL on spine of volume)
    A great source (111 volumes) for writers from the nineteenth century. You'll find here excerpts from articles by a variety of critics on a variety of writers. Use the index in the last volume to find references to the writer you are looking for.
  • Poetry Criticism (809 P745 reference section, 1 st floor)

Books from the Stacks

  • Cultural History of Reading (028.9 C968R V. 2)
    An overview of reading - from bibles to zines' -- in America . A fine source for a general idea of the intellectual and aesthetic history of America.
  • A Norton Critical Edition (like your copy of Walt Whtiman) of any of the works we've read is a great source. Each of the essays is considered a separate source. Find these in the library's catalog.

_______________________________________

Online Sources

General web sites (the kind you get when you conduct an online search via Yahoo, AOL, AltaVista, etc.) are notoriously unauthoritative. However, there are databases which the college subscribes to (and pays big bucks for) that collect articles originally written in paper form and repackaged for the net.

The four sites below are databases containing articles that you may use in your essay; any other sites must be approved by me before being used in your essay. Failure to check source with me will result in a automatic “D.” All of these databases can be accessed by clicking on the Library Links from the menu on the left.

Literature Resource Center
A great site for general research in literature. It consists of several parts -- bibliographical, critical, etc. -- which are accessed by clicking on the tabs. Not to be confused with the Literature Reference Center, which is a subset of EBSCOhost noted below.

JSTOR
One of the premier academic resources. Use this to find rich, scholarly essays on a variety of topics.

EBSCOhost
Another online database is EBSCOhost, which you may be familiar with from English 151. You'll have to prompt the site to access the Academic Search Elite to find literary articles. While the articles can be a bit dense, this is the place to go for up to date research.

Oxford Reference Collection
This database contains many volumes -- the main ones for our work include
The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
The Concise Oxford Companion to American Literature
The Oxford Companion to American Literature
The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature
The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms
The Oxford Companion to United States History
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America


Verb List and Sample In-text Citations

"When do I cite a source?"
Whenever you include a word, phrase, or idea from a source, it needs to be cited.  That source can include a web page, classroom lecture, an interview with your Uncle Pete, quote or summary from a book, magazine, etc.  And note that I wrote "a" word -- singular.  Even a single word from someone else, when included in your own essay, needs to be set off with quotation marks and then cited.

"How do I cite using MLA?"
The number two is important to remember when using MLA citation because it consists of two parts: an in-text citation (which includes the author and page number) and works cited entry, as shown in the examples below:

1) Sample In-Text Citation (the part that goes in your essay)

Mitchell Domhnall notes that “some critics allege that to read Dickinson in any standard typographic edition is effectively to read her in translation.”  This suggests that the usual method of reading a poem in a textbook isn’t the best way to read Dickinson.

Note that the author's name and page number is enclosed in parenthesis (no p. or page is needed) and that the period goes to the right.

2) Sample Works Cited Entry (the part that goes on a separate page at the end) for In-text Citation above

Domhnall, Mitchell. “The Grammar of Ornament: Emily Dickinson's Manuscripts and Their Meanings.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 55:4 (2001): 179-204. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 August 2001.

Together, these two parts let the reader know who wrote your article, where they can find it, and approximately how long the article is.

This two part citation method works like a code. In general, the reader looks for the author’s name and page number in the in-text citation, and then goes to the works cited entry for additional information. Your job is to supply the correct parts of the code in the correct order. You have to be sure that the name/word you include in your in-text citation will match the first word of one of your works cited entries. Thus, the name “Mitchell Domhnall in the in-text example above  matches the name “Domhnall” in the sample works cited entry. Get it? Readers would see the name and citation  and instantly know that the information before the citation is from a writer named “Domhnall.” If they wanted to check your source, they would turn to the Works Cited page and scan the first word of the alphabetically arranged list of Works Cited entries until the word “Domhnall” appeared.

You must correctly document your sources to receive a passing grade. I'm more than willing to help you with this: just check with me.

See the Citing Sources link on the course site for detailed instructions on citing sources for held by OCC library.

Below you'll find a list of verbs which are often used to incorporate quotes into sentences and a list of sentences including sources.

Use both as tools to help you work quotes into your own prose.

These verbs can also come in handy when providing context and for shifting into arguments.

add
agree analyze answer argue

believe charge
claim comment conclude consider

criticize declare describe define discover emphasize

explain
feels illustrate imply indicate
list

maintain mention |note observe object
offer

point out reinforce report
reply respond reveal

show
stress suggest support think
write

What follows are a series of sentences which successfully incorporate an outside source. Review these to get a sense of the rhythm and cadence involved in setting up a quote and how the verb list above can help "launch" a quote. These sentences conclude with a works cited page which would be needed if these quotes were included in a single essay.

From the beginning of the text, Bradford sets the Puritans apart from others. He writes that "many became enlightened by the Word of God and had their ignorance and sins discovered" (157). Separating the "enlightened" from what seems to be the unenlightened makes a clear "us v. them" distinction.

The power of O'Connor's "The Revelation" is derived from its moral tenacity. As the writer Joyce Carol Oates observes, the story "questions the very foundations of our assumptions of the ethical life" (52). Since Mrs. Turpin's "foundation" was based upon a shallow and limited view of religion, she was ripe for a fall.

Although some critics argue that surrealism began in 1924 after the publication of the Surrealist Manifesto by Andre Breton (Kershner 52), Kafka's work, published a decade earlier, shares many qualities of surrealist art, and should be considered a precursor to the later movement.

The critics David Boxer and Cassandra Phillips also note Carver's seeming lack of style. They write that "what seems to be casual talk, virtually empty of communication, is really very deliberately and finely wrought" (99). This emphasis on the craft of his fiction -- it is "deliberately and finely wrought" -- underscores the nature of Carver's oxymoronic talent: he made conversation seem so natural that it seems to merely record what is being said.

As Dickens wrote in an essay published in the same decade as Hard Times, "It is probable that nothing will ever root out from among the common people an innate love they have for dramatic entertainment in some form or other" (305-306). That Lousia and Tom, members of the upper-class, would also find amusement in the circus shows that the differences between classes -- between people -- is not as well defined as we would think.

F. R. Leavis argues that the circus performers are symbols of "human spontaneity" (344). As such, they operate according to emotions rather than from the slow and measured intellect of Gradgrind.

Mitchell Domhnal notes that "some critics allege that to read Dickinson in any standard typographic edition is effectively to read her in translation." This suggests that the usual method of reading a poem in a textbook isn't the best way to read Dickinson.

Leypoldt Gunter argues that there are "two types of Carver stor[ies]," with one being realistic and the other more experimental (320).


Instructions on how to set up these entries are found on the Citing Sources link (on the left).

Works Cited

Boxer, David and Cassandra Phillips. From "'Will You Please

Be Quiet, Please?': Voyeurism, Dissociation, and the Art of

Raymond Carver." Iowa Review. 10 (1979): 75-90. Rprt. In

"Raymond Carver." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed.

Sharon R. Gunton and Jean C. Stue. Vol. 22. Detroit : Gale

Research, 1982. 98-101. Print.

Bradford, William. From Of Plymouth Plantation. The Norton

Anthology of American Literature. Vol. A. Eds. Nina

Baym, et al . New York : Norton, 2003. 157-196. Print.

Dickens, Charles. "The Amusements of the People." From

Household Words 30 March 1850.  Rprt. in Hard Times. Ed.

George Ford and Sylvere Monod.  New York: Norton, 1990.

305-307. Print.

Kershener, R. B. The Twentieth-Century Novel: An Introduction.

New York: Bedford Books, 1997. Print.

Leavis, F. R. "Hard Times: An Analytic Novel." From

The Great Tradition. London: Chatto and Windus, 1948. 227-

48. Rprt. in Hard Times. Ed. George Ford and Sylvere Monod.

New York :Norton, 1990. 340-360. Print.

Mitchell, Domhnall. "The Grammar of Ornament: Emily

Dickinson's Manuscripts and Their Meanings." Nineteenth-

Century Literature 55:2 (2001): 179-204.

Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 August 2001.

Oates, Joyce Carol. "The Visionary Art of Flannery

O'Connor." Flannery O'Connor. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York:

Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 43-53. Print.

 © 2009 David Bordelon