Discovery and Exploration: Finding and Using Specific Sources

To discover what kinds of conversations scholars are having about a particular text—and to identify how you might contribute to that conversation—you will need to do exploratory research.

Before moving into any exploratory research you might undertake, however, let’s define a few important terms you will undoubtedly encounter. Primary texts, or primary sources, are typically original sources upon which scholars base other research. Primary sources have not been filtered through analysis or evaluation and are fixed in the time period involved. Letters, diaries, manuscripts, and even social media posts are common types of primary sources. In literature class, you will commonly encounter other primary sources: novels, plays, poetry, stories, etc. Secondary texts, or secondary sources, are often created using primary sources. They typically involve analysis or evaluation of primary sources, often with the benefit of hindsight or distance from the time period involved. Commentaries, criticisms, and histories are a few common types of secondary texts.

There are many types of research that happen with literary texts. In the case of older works, you may discover that there are conversations about the text that have been going on for hundreds of years, and you may be more interested in what contemporary scholars have to say about a work than what scholars from one hundred years ago have posited. You might be interested in the history of how a text was physically created and published, or you might want to know about how a text fits into the historical circumstances in which it was composed. Whenever you begin trying to get a sense of what is being said about a text, you may begin exploring secondary texts.

Sometimes this might begin as a Google search, or by perusing a Wikipedia entry. This type of browsing and exploration can help you discover in broad strokes the conversations surrounding a text. As you do this, note which words people use to describe those questions. For example, if you are looking for topics regarding a certain literary theory, you may find that scholars in that area use specific terms for that theory, such as “feminist” or “psychoanalytic.” If you do any preliminary searching in engines like Google, examine your results for key terms that stick out, and make a note of them so you can use them to browse in library databases. While sources like Wikipedia can be helpful for discovering terms, browsing in a library database will let you refine a topic by showing you material that is specific to literary scholarship, much of which is not available openly on the web.

Journey to the Center of the Library: Finding Secondary Sources

Exploring databases or journals can be a great way to uncover conversations about a particular work of literature. A common database to use for literary research is MLA International Bibliography, which is found listed with the English databases. MLA International Bibliography and other literary criticism databases such as JSTOR and Project Muse contain a variety of sources, including references to print sources like books and book chapters.

Let’s return now to the Venn diagram we created earlier. As we mentioned above, not only is this prewriting strategy an excellent way to hunt for potential topics, but it may also provide search terms that will prove to be useful when we are looking for secondary sources on our topic. The search in MLA International Bibliography and many other databases operates like the Venn diagram. All of the terms from the first circle of your Venn diagram will go in the first search box in the database, while all of the terms from the second circle of your Venn diagram will go in the second search box. As your topic begins to come into focus, you may add additional circles to your Venn diagram, which in turn will result in terms for additional search boxes.

Using the terms from the Venn diagram above, we can try searching for the title in MLA International Bibliography, as is depicted in Image 7.1 below. By indicating that Frankenstein is the Primary Subject Work, you’re telling the database that the articles it finds should be related to Frankenstein. Once you’ve found items about Frankenstein, you can start adding some additional terms in the second search box to indicate the theoretical lens you want to explore. You can connect search terms in the database using Boolean operators. Boolean operators are the terms AND, OR, and NOT. These terms tell the database how to interpret your combination of search terms:

• AND tells the database to look for items that include all of your search terms (e.g., results that talk about both gender and Frankenstein.
• OR tells the database to look for items that include either of your search terms (e.g., results that talk about either Frankenstein or Mary Shelley.
• NOT tells the database to exclude a term. For instance, you might want items that talk about Frankenstein and gender, but that exclude sources about dress. Use this operator with caution, though, as it is easy to inadvertently exclude relevant sources.The * (asterisk) tells the database to look for terms with any ending after the text you added (e.g., fem* yields materials including any of the following words: female, feminine, feminism, feminist).

Figure 7.4 below demonstrates the use of the root term fem* to search for articles examining Frankenstein within a feminist framework or analyzing the female characters in the novel.

Exploratory searching can help you see how robust the conversation is about a particular topic. Searching for Frankenstein AND fem* brings back quite a few results and indicates that you may need to use that third search box to focus your search more narrowly.

Note: Clicking on “Find Text @ TAMU” will bring you to the article/book chapter/book, if available electronically. Take a look at some of the abstracts to help you get a sense of the ways that other scholars are applying that theoretical lens to the text you’re interested in. Does anything pique your interest? Does it give you any ideas on how you could apply that theoretical lens in your own way in order to contribute to the conversation?

One important thing to note about this type of exploratory searching is that not every text is written about as extensively as Frankenstein. If you find that searching for the title of your text yields few or no results, here are a few strategies you can try:

1. Simplify your search. Search for the title of your text alone, without any filters like “Primary Subject Work” or theoretical lenses.
2. Add alternate terms, like the author’s name. For example, you could search Frankenstein OR Mary Shelley.
3. Add broader terms like the genre or time period. For example, Frankenstein OR Mary Shelley OR 18th Century OR Enlightenment.

Grappling with Literary Criticism and Other Secondary Sources

Once you’ve found sources that look promising, it’s time to grapple with them! When reading literary criticism and other secondary sources, you want to practice the same active reading strategies you employ when reading any text for your college courses. These strategies include, but are not limited to, highlighting, underlining, taking notes, and asking questions of the text. Staying actively engaged with texts while reading them leads to better comprehension and helps you develop a sense of how other writers build arguments and convey information.

Strategies for Reading Sources

Along with the active reading strategies you are accustomed to employing, here are a few specific strategies that will help you navigate the nuances and complexity of literary criticism and other secondary sources:

1. Ask yourself why you are reading the source. What about the source initially made it look promising when you were sorting through sources? What do you hope to learn or discover from this source?
2. Identify the source’s thesis or main argument. Literary criticism and other forms of secondary sources often employ a standard structure, so look for an articulation of the source’s main argument at the end of the introductory section of the source.
3. Identify the larger context or conversation in which the author is making their argument. Are they responding directly to other scholars? Do they reference other lines of thinking that precede them? Do they explicitly or implicitly position themselves within a particular school of thought or employ a particular theoretical lens?
4. Trace the relationship between the source’s higher-level (major or overarching) arguments and lower-level (more minor or tangential) arguments. How does the author’s evidence and analysis contribute to the source’s main argument or thesis? Creating a simple outline allows you to see these relationships more clearly and helps you identify successful strategies for organizing your own writing.
5. Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything the first time you read the article. Literary criticism is dense, and you might have to reread sections of the source to comprehend it. You might need to look up words in a dictionary or do a quick Google search to familiarize yourself with new concepts.
6. If you’ve employed active reading strategies and are still grappling with the source’s argument or evidence after reading the source a few times, don’t be afraid to reach out to your instructor, who can be a great resource in helping you distill a particularly complex source.
7. Create an annotated bibliography of the sources you find interesting and/or useful. To begin to do this, you will need to construct a citation for the source and then write several sentences about the source. These sentences usually include a paraphrase of the source’s main argument, what points in the piece that you find interesting and want to be sure to remember, and then a sentence or two about how this particular source might be useful to you as you begin to think about potential topics or construct your thesis argument or refine that argument.

Strategies for Engaging with Sources

Now that you have an idea of what scholars are discussing and what you think of their claims, you can begin to formulate your own responses. Keep in mind that repeating a literary scholar’s argument is not the same as engaging with that argument. You don’t want merely to describe what the source is saying. Instead, you want to engage actively with it, and that means building upon, responding to, disagreeing with, or refining the ideas that you encounter. Simply repeating what another scholar is saying rather than contributing your own ideas is a common pitfall among college writers, and students tend to find themselves in this position when they try to apply the following type of logic in their own arguments:

1. I argue that symbolism figures prominently in this novel.
2. Scholar X also argues that symbolism figures prominently in this novel.
3. I am correct in my argument that symbolism figures prominently in the novel because someone before me made the same argument.

Rather than simply using sources to support your own ideas about the text, you also want to add to the arguments those sources are making. In this way, you will find that engaging with sources helps you to refine and/or expand your own ideas and, thus, your own unique argument about a text. Consider the following revision of the three points above:

1. I argue that symbolism figures prominently in this novel.
2. Scholar X argues that symbolism figures prominently in this novel.
3. I agree with Scholar X’s particular argument about how symbolism figures in this novel, and furthermore, I add that symbolism accomplishes an additional function that Scholar X does not consider. . .

You can see in this revision that the writer is beginning to think not only about what Scholar X is arguing but about what the writer, themself, can add to the ongoing conversation about symbolism in a particular novel.

In addition to engaging actively with the sources you’re reading, you want to make sure that you use sources ethically when incorporating them into your own work. Ethical use of a source means that you represent the scholar’s argument accurately and honestly. If you disagree with a point the scholar is making, reread it, make sure you understand that point as well as the overarching argument, and then explain why you disagree, while also supporting your point by using specific quotations from the literary text in question.

Furthermore, in order to use sources ethically, you should avoid cherry-picking only pieces of the conversation that support your own argument. Don’t be afraid to argue with a critic; just do so honestly and thoughtfully. Similarly, if you agree with a point or larger argument that a scholar is making, don’t simply stop at agreement. Instead, agree with the idea and then refine, expand, nuance, or otherwise build upon that idea.

In summary, approach a literary essay as you would a conversation to which you are contributing; listen to what the other person is saying (writing), make sure you understand and can accurately reflect their meaning back to them, and then respond respectfully and with enough detail in order to make your own point clear. This perspective will radically change how you conceptualize your argument, how you engage with scholars, and how you utilize evidence.