Researching a Text or Author

Once you have identified an analytical task, it is time to turn your attention to research.

Why does research matter? Certainly, it is important to read and quote from a text you are writing about. However, in many college writing situations, you are not limited to the text alone. As you progress in this class — and throughout college — you will likely run into an increasing number of writing assignments that require the use of outside sources. But how to conduct research? Many students feel lost at the prospect, and resort to a brief Google search.

Don’t fall into this trap! Here’s where to go (spoiler: it’s the library) and what to look for, when researching about literature.

Researching a Text

Your campus library contains a number of additional sources that can make you far more knowledgable about the text, as well as the time period in which it was written. What’s more, quoting from one or more of these sources in addition to the text can strengthen your paper’s argument!

When you visit the library, either in person or online, look for:

• Literary criticism about the text. (Often, literary criticism is written in shorter journal article format. However, at times a critic may write an entire book! A savvy student researcher will look for both.)
• Historical texts describing events within the text’s time period.
• Sociological or socio-historical studies that illuminate an issue found within the text. (For example, students could read a book about women’s rights in the nineteenth century to gain a deeper understanding of a female character’s plight in a George Eliot novel.)

Researching an Author

As with other forms of research, your campus library is an invaluable source of information about many authors. As a general rule, the older and/or more widely read an author is, the more likely it is that you will find one or more of the following resources:

• Biographies.
• Critical introductions. (These books typically contain a brief biography and then a series of scholarly commentaries on an author’s writings.)
• Newspaper and magazine interviews with the author. (This is more common with modern authors.)
• Authors’ journals (diaries) and/or letters. (These are often published posthumously.)
• Nonfiction books about a broader movement or group that the author is associated with. (Examples might include a book about the English Metaphysical Poets that includes John Donne, or a book about the American Dark Romantic movement that includes Nathaniel Hawthorne.)

Additionally, if the author you are researching is currently alive, you may be able to find recordings of their speeches, interviews, and readings elsewhere online. An example of this type of material is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2009 TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” viewable below. (Note: A transcript can be viewed/accessed at this link.)

A student researching Adichie for a paper about one of her books might come across this talk online. When writing, that student could quote some of Adichie’s ideas from the video or its transcript, then analyze how those ideas show up in the novel they are writing about.