Introduction to Strategies for Conducting Literary Research
Barry Mauer and John Venecek
We discuss the following topics on this page:
- Introduction
- Meet Jada
- Scaffolding and Transference
- The Complexity of Literary Study
- Course Learning Objectives
Introduction
Welcome to Strategies for Conducting Literary Research! This book walks you through the process of conducting literary research while helping to refine your library skills. Along the way, we draw from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy Framework. According to the ACRL, “Research is iterative and depends upon asking increasingly complex or new questions whose answers lead to additional questions or lines of inquiry in any field.” Here, the word “iterative” means we repeat the process, refining and improving our work. We discuss the research process in-depth throughout the book. The book also focuses on a research project created by Jada, an English major who conducted a literary study of James Baldwin’s classic short story, “Sonny’s Blues.”
Though we describe research into “Sonny’s Blues” throughout this book, we also discuss ways you can transfer these lessons to your own research about literature. Start by reading “Sonny’s Blues” in its original context: the Summer 1957 issues of Partisan Review. The story begins on page 327 and ends on page 358.
Meet Jada
Scaffolding and Transference
Before we begin this course, let’s review two important and interconnected concepts that we’ll reinforce throughout these chapters: Scaffolding and Transference.
Scaffolding: This refers to the way in which researchers build increasingly complex and sophisticated skills atop a solid foundation or framework of basic principles and work up from there. In other words, each idea or skill presented in this course should not be viewed as an isolated or standalone concept. We’ve designed this course to begin with basic or core principles, such as understanding an assignment, before moving into more complex concepts, such as writing and evaluating a research question.
Think of each chapter as one step in a scaffold designed to elevate your research skills. Also note this process won’t be strictly linear. It will be gradual and will require you to pause at various steps to reflect on what you’ve learned, how all the pieces fit together, and where you’re going next. Ideally, you will build confidence and become more self-directed and intentional as you move through the course and higher up the scaffold.
Once you have a solid foundation in place, you can apply your foundational knowledge to new concepts, which leads us to our next point.
Transference: We’ve noticed in previous classes that students often understand the concepts presented here, and even the scaffolding approach, but not the all-important next step: to apply their skills to the assignment, which is what educators call transference.
Much like scaffolding, transference is a form of structural learning that promotes cognitive growth by teaching students to apply, or transfer, knowledge and skills from one context to another. In “Transference of Learning,” Paul Main states that this is a form of active learning that requires “careful orchestration.” He likens it to “the art of connecting dots that seem unrelated but form a beautiful pattern when aligned.”
He further adds that transference is “transference of learning is not just a concept but a symphony of cognitive skills, understanding, and adaptability.” So, what does this mean for us?
While you work through this course, and you focus on building and scaffolding your skills, keep in mind that the next step will be the application of those skills to an actual research project… and that research project may serve as the foundation for future research projects.
Remember that the skills we present throughout this course do not exist in silos, they are part of a holistic learning environment in which we are always building new and increasingly complex skills that can be transferred from one context to another.
The Complexity of Literary Studies Research
In a research-based course, your instructor might require you to write a research paper of 5-6 or 10-12 pages, but the knowledge you need to perform this task can fill up hundreds of pages. Writing about literature is a complicated, often messy process; it needs to meet high standards while incorporating knowledge from other fields such as psychology, history, science, and other arts. It entails knowledge about language, genre, structures, styles, and more. To produce good research about literature, we need to know a lot of things about a lot of things!
Although we discuss the research process in a linear fashion throughout these chapters, you’ll find that in practice literary research is a highly recursive process. We’re constantly circling back through the process as we write. Because writing instructors – even those who wrote this book – are locked into presenting the writing process in a linear way, we tend to discuss it in terms of stages such as preliminary research, drafting, revising, and so on. But writing a research paper requires us to rethink and redo our work at any stage. It’s not uncommon for researchers to be in the middle of proofreading – one of the final stages – and realize they need to go back and gather more materials. Though this book focuses on research about literature, the skills and knowledge in these chapters apply to many other areas and topics, especially in the humanities.
Course Learning Objectives
- Understand the assignment
- Identify a research problem
- Develop audience awareness
- Enter a scholarly conversation
- Understand theory’s integral role within humanities research
- Understand how theory relates to particular research methodologies and methods for gathering evidence
- Learn to use online library catalogs, database search strategies, library services, citation management, and search alerts
- Evaluate source credibility
- Posit a research question
- Posit a thesis statement
- Compose a title
- Define your key terms
- Write persuasively
- Write academic prose
- Steer clear of plagiarism
- Finish your research project
