English

Research Essay

Write an essay between 1200 and 2100 words that responds to one of the questions of the course in relation to two primary texts. One of the primary texts may be a song that was played before class, but at least one must be a reading/viewing we discussed in class.

You must also use at least three academic, secondary sources in your essay. These sources must A) either be a peer reviewed journal article OR a book/chapter in a book published by an academic press; AND B) present new information that has not been previously published OR present new analysis of previously published information (i.e. NO review articles or book reviews).

You may take the general course questions and make them more specific. In fact, the more specific you make the question, the better your essay will be. Furthermore, the closer the primary texts are that you choose, the better your essay will be. If you try to compare two texts that deal with vastly different historical contexts in vastly different ways, you will have trouble finding points of comparison.

Your argument should be focused on a significant difference OR similarity between the works. Use close reading and secondary sources to help you clarify that difference or similarity. Ultimately, you should be able to show how your argument and analysis has helped us understand both works better. As a result, your discussion of both works should be balanced.

You will need to submit an informal proposal via email by November 20.

This proposal should a) indicate which primary texts you will use b) indicate which course question you will answer in relation to the texts c) clarify how you will focus the question d) list at least two secondary, academic sources you plan to use in your essay.

We will also have round table presentations in class and online. More details on those to follow.

This assignment should be in MLA format. You will lose 0.5 points for each MLA formatting mistake you make up to a maximum of 5 points.

Questions of the Course

1. How is resistance represented?

2. How are the dominant systems/consequences of the dominant system represented?

3. How are the complicit/complacent critiqued?

4. What kind of resistance is represented as justified? What kind of resistance is represented as problematic?

5. How is form used as a means of resistance?

6. How are problematic, dominant narratives reinterpreted as an act of resistance?

Conducting Academic Research With LibrarySearch 

LibrarySearch is MRU Library's one-stop search interface/catalogue that brings together resources across format, time, and subject. 

We have millions of e-resources and 221,000 physical resources in our collection, and LibrarySearch searches across those.

Things to remember when using LibrarySearch:

1. Sign in to save searches, items, and to request materials.

2. Use the pin icon to save books and articles to your Favorites for future reference.

3. Use the filters on the right. You will use Availability, Resource Type, and Date filters most often. Filter settings can be "locked in" so that you don't have to reapply them to every search that you make.

4. Some items may not be available, however, you can request unavailable items using what is called interlibrary loan.

5. When viewing an item record, scroll down to the Get it (for hardcopy/physical items) or Access options (for electronic items) section to get access to the item.

Helpful Search Operators to Use in LibrarySearch

You can use what are called search operators to search in a way to combine or omit different terms by telling the search engine exactly what you want and this can help you save some time (and frustration!)

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "Wide Sargasso Sea"

  •  "Where the Wild Things Are"

• Use AND to combine search terms (LibrarySearch automatically creates an AND when you write terms one after another, but it can be good practice to use an AND to help you understand the searches that you build) (AND narrows your search):

  • "V for Vendetta" AND resistance

• Use OR to connect two or more similar terms (OR broadens your search):

  • weather OR environment

  • resistance OR protest OR defiance

• Use wild cards/truncation to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol:

  • resist* (in this example, the search resist* will search for records that contain words such as resists, resisting, and resistance)

• You can combine these techniques in a single search:

  • sendak AND "where the wild things are" AND "social justice"

Conducting Academic Research With Google Scholar

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is another great way to find high quality resources.

Besides providing links to resources in MRU databases, Google Scholar links to online repositories that contain articles the author has been allowed to upload.  Academia.edu and ResearchGate are among the repositories searched by Google Scholar.

By clicking on the Settings icon, you can select library links to show library access for up to 5 libraries (type in Mount Royal and click on save).  If you are logged into MRU library, links should automatically populate if you are running a Google search in another window. 

Google Scholar has a nifty citation chaining function. The Cited by function will forward you to indexed scholarly material that has cited a resource that you may be interested in. The Related articles link will direct you to similar articles that may have the same metadata or keywords. 

Helpful Search Operators to Use in Google Scholar

Google Scholar's Advanced Search is found by clicking the menu icon in the top left.

You can also add search operators to Google Scholar searches to build your own custom advanced searches in similar ways to LibrarySearch:

• Use quotation marks to keep specific phrases together:

  • "Star Wars"

• Avoid using AND to combine search terms with Google Scholar, as the search engine automatically creates ANDs between concepts and sometimes adding an additional AND can confuse the search syntax.

• Use OR to connect two or more similar terms:

  • "epistolary novel" OR "epistolary fiction"

• Avoid using wild cards to substitute a letter or suffix with a symbol—instead write out the complete words and connect with an OR

  • allusive OR allusiveness OR allusion OR allusions

Databases

• MLA International Bibliography

   

  An index of journals, books and dissertations covering literature, language and linguistics, folklore, dramatic arts, printing and publishing, rhetoric, and composition.
• Literature Criticism Online

   

  Compilation of literary commentary covering centuries of analysis, both scholarly and popular commentary. Includes the series Children's Literature Review, Classical And Medieval Literature Criticism, Contemporary Literary Criticism, Drama Criticism, Literature Criticism From 1400-1800, Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism, Poetry Criticism, Shakespearean Criticism, Short Story Criticism, and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism

• Literature Resource Center

   

  A literary reference database which provides users with a broad spectrum of reference information from antiquity to the present day.
• Project MUSE Premium Collection

   

  Provides full text of a growing number of scholarly journals in the arts and humanities.
• JSTOR Collection

   

  Digital library of academic journals, ebooks and primary sources. Includes content across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.

Figure 1

Peter Steiner's Famous 1993 New Yorker Cartoon Illustrating an Issue Central to Information Evaluation

Note. From "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" [Cartoon], by P. Steiner, 1993, Wikimedia (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.jpg).

Evaluating Information

It is good to find lots of search results, but, in order to use information skilfully, you need to know how to evaluate that information to determine whether a specific resource is appropriate to use in a specific use case (i.e. for a specific assignment).

The phrase "evaluating information" actually stands in for a wide range of judgments that we make about information in many different contexts, whether those judgments are about relevance, timeliness, quality, etc.

Librarians have developed several different acronyms to help people remember useful criteria to use in information evaluation. One of my personal favourites is RADAR!

RADAR stands for

Relevance

Authority

Date

Accuracy

Reason for Creation

We can ask the following questions to help us assess each criterion:

Relevance:

• Does this source fit my topic?

• What is this source's intended audience?

  • Is that intended audience appropriate for my use case in this assignment?

Authority:

• Is/are the creator(s) of this source clearly identified or known to us?

• How important is it in this use case to trust the source's creator(s)?

  • If it is important, why should we trust the source's creator(s)?

  • Is the source's creator credentialed or an expert in their field?

Date:

• Is the creation or publication date of this source identified or known to us?

• Is this source too old?

Accuracy:

• Do this source's facts "check out"?

• Does the source have references of its own?

Reason for Creation (take your best guess at this question using judgments from earlier criteria):

• Why was this source made?

• Was this source made to sell a product or service, to inform/educate, to entertain, etc?

(Adapted from Mandalios, J. (2013). RADAR: An approach for helping students evaluate Internet sources. Journal of Information Science, 39(4), 470-478. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551513478889)

Primary vs. Secondary Sources

Primary Sources

The literary work itself, such as a novel, poem, story, play, essay, or a collection of these works.

Secondary Sources

Research and scholarship about the primary source work, or about the author/creator of the primary source.

Articles and Books - your best option

• original research appears in peer reviewed journal articles, books, or individual book chapters

• in-depth analysis, criticism, and commentary

• may explore a literary work or set of works, or an author's works as a whole, or a particular literary theme

Reference Works

• sometimes called background sources, includes encyclopedias, handbooks, or companion guides

• only basic or introductory information on a topic or person

• may describe and criticize a work, author, theme, etc., but is not comprehensive literary research or criticism

Book Reviews

• generally written within two years of the time the book was published

• published in journals, trade and popular magazines

• may describe and criticize a work, author, theme, etc., but is not comprehensive literary research or criticism

Scholarly vs. Popular Sources

A scholarly publication contains articles written by experts in a particular field. The primary audience of these articles is other experts.

Many of these publications are also referred to as "peer-reviewed," academic, or "refereed." They all mean essentially the same thing and refer to the editorial and publication process in which scholars in the same field review the research and findings before the article is published.

Some Helpful Questions for Identifying a Scholarly/Academic Article

1. What are the author’s credentials? Was it written by an expert?

2. Was it published in a journal (is there a DOI?)? (If you are not sure if a source is a journal article, you can enter the title of the publication into Ulrichs Web to check.)

3. Does it use academic or more technical language?

4. Does it includes a reference list of sources that it is citing?

5. How long is it? (Scholarly articles are typically longer than popular or news articles.)

6. Does it have a "Received" and "Accepted" date on it?

7. Is it an actual article? (Sometimes other types of content are included in scholarly publications, such as editorials/opinion pieces and book reviews. Make sure you are looking at an article.)

 Add / Reorder 

Activity: Is It Scholarly?

To make sure we are all on the same page, let's put our knowledge to the test.

Skim the following resources available through the links keeping in mind the characteristics we have discussed in class (for example: what is this information and where did it come from? Was it written by an expert? Where is this source published?).

Vote whether you think this source is Scholarly or Not Scholarly.

Source 1

Source 2

Source 3

Source 4

Source 5

Source 6

Source 7

Source 8

General Writing Resources

• Thesis statements (MRU Student Learning Services)

• Worksheet: Develop your thesis statement (MRU Student Learning Services)

• Essay Idea Diagram (MRU Student Learning Services)

• Structuring Body Paragraphs Using P-E-A (MRU Student Learning Services)

Citation Help

• Use the "cite" feature in most search tools to get you started with most resources (you will need to review and correct the citation).

• Cite Sources: Learn the correct way to cite sources by using these guides, tutorials, and videos.

  • MRU Guide to MLA style for Academic Work (2025-2026)

  • MRU Guide to Formatting Your MLA Paper (2025-2026)

  • MLA Handbook Plus

    • The go-to resource for writers of research papers and anyone citing sources. MLA Handbook Plus includes the full text of the ninth edition of the handbook.

• Academic Success Workshops: Academic Success Workshops are 75 minutes long and are offered both in-person and online. Registration is required.

• Appointments: Personalized online or in-person 30-minute appointments with a Learning Strategist at Student Learning Services located on the 2nd floor of the Riddell Library & Learning Centre.

• Use the Service Desk on the 1st floor of the RLLC for assistance as well as the library chat feature on the library website for quick citation questions.