Research Paper

for Middle English Literature and Chaucer:

Methods, Techniques, and Suggestions

The Goal: A research paper of 10-12 pages, or 3500-4000 words, in MLA format.

What's a Research Paper?

A research paper is a work that proceeds from a detailed knowledge of the work of literature in question, and is informed by a study of other works of research by other scholars.

The Method

1. Read the work in question several times, in detail. Once you decide to write about one passage or section of it, you should reread that passage even more carefully several more times. This is the most important part of your research, although not the only important part. Without doing this, at best you'll reproduce what some other scholar has already written, while at worst (and probably) you'll just get it all wrong.

2. Go to the MLA Bibliography (or the Online Chaucer Bibliography) and print out all the scholarship on the work you have chosen. You will get many, many "hits."

NOTE: You can now access the MLA Bibliography through the web. Connect to the Sprague Library Page and pick "Select A Database" on the left column.

For example: if you have chosen Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale, search for all the articles and books on it, and print them all out.

NOTE: this won't get you everything, because it won't list chapters or sections of books on Chaucer or Middle English Literature generally that deal with the WBT. But it should be sufficient for your purposes, in most cases.

3. Read through the printout of "hits". Take an hour or so to study all the subjects and titles. Take note of recurring topics - topics that have been researched by several different scholars.

You should pick one of these recurrent topics to do your research on. Now you have a ready-made bibliography.

What to avoid: Avoid finding a topic first, and then hoping you'll find some research on it. This is a more advanced method - more advanced, because you may not find any research on the topic you pick, or you may find only a little. Doing research on a topic nobody or few people have researched before is certainly possible. But it is for more advanced students, in general.

If you decide that you want to do this anyway, please discuss it with me first.

4. Connect to MSU's Sprague Library Catalog, now on the web, and to the catalogs of other nearby libraries, to find out which of them has the books and journals which contain the articles on the topic you pick

Nearby Library Catalogs are linked on the Sprague Library page.

(Library catalogs of the entire world -- those that are accessible on the Internet, which is most of them -- can be found by going to my Documentation and Research Page, and then looking through the first section.)

Then, arrange to get MSU identification and go to those libraries.

NOTE: INTER-LIBRARY LOAN. If you have a month's "lead time" or so - which you seldom do - you may try to get the articles delivered to you through Inter-Library Loan. See the ILL librarians in Sprague.

To get articles and to find titles of books with chapters relevant for your topic, use the Journal Databases available through Sprague Library.

NOTE: You are REQUIRED to use ARTICLES from AT LEAST TWO SCHOLARLY JOURNALS THAT ARE NOT IN SPRAGUE LIBRARY'S (MSU's library) DATABASES.

This means: you MUST use at least two articles, OR chapters from two books, that are in a library and NOT available in the digital databases.

• You can use articles and chapters from books that are in Sprague Library.
• Or you can use materials from another academic library, such as Rutgers University (Newark, New Brunswick, Camden); William Paterson U., Kean U., and so on.
• Or, you can use any of the splendid research libraries in New York City, such as: Butler Library, Columbia University; Bobst Library, New York University: The New York Public Library (better use the Main Branch, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street); etc.
• Or, you can use the resources of any other academic library that is convenient to you (e.g. if you are on a trip to Boston, use Harvard, Boston University, U. Massachusetts at Boston, etc.)

I want you all to get used to the idea that serious research means visiting other libraries, not "making do" with whatever is at hand.

I will go over with you how to find the libraries to go to, if you want to use a library other than Sprague Library (MSU's own library)..

5. Read the articles carefully. Study not only what they say, but their methods. Study how they disagree with each other, as well as what they say in common.

This is where your own careful reading of the work or passages in question is vital. Which of these research works do YOU think is most accurate, given (1) their evidence and arguments; and (2) your own careful, informed reading?

6. When you have carefully studied all the secondary research, you should be ready to pick a thesis statement. What is it you wish to prove? Because all research is an attempt to argue some thesis - to prove some statement is true, or is not true.

Try to state your thesis in one sentence. For example, try to complete the following phrase and make it into a sentence:

"In this paper I intend to prove that..."

If you follow this format, you will certainly end up with a good thesis statement.

7. Once you have a thesis statement, you should try to prove your thesis with reference to your own close reading, and the works of research you have read.

What To Avoid:

• Summary. Do NOT summarize the work you are studying, or the works of research you are using. Avoid summary altogether.
• Plagiarism. Do NOT use the ideas, words, or whole sentences from any other source without footnoting them.
• Excessive direct quotation. No more than one page, total, of quotations in your entire paper. (If you feel more is essential for your purposes, please discuss it with me first).

Remember - your readers want YOUR reading, YOUR ideas, YOUR thinking, not your rehash of somebody else's.

8. At this point, you should do both:

• a database search on the CHAUCER mailing list. For how to do this, see my Research and Documentation Page, or go straight to the 'Searching Listserve Archives' page, both on our course Home Page.
• a scholarly query to the CHAUCER mailing list. Here are some guidelines that will help you compose a good scholarly query without getting blown off as just another undergraduate student who is asking some scholars to do their research paper for them.

9. Once your paper is written and your thesis proven, do the following:

• Spell-check and grammar-check it (MS Word, on the lab computers, has both facilities). I will return ungraded any paper with more than one or two spelling and grammar errors at the most.

10. FORMATTING YOUR PAPER

IF I have asked you for a printed copy of your paper, follow the guidelines below the subtitle Printed Copy below. Otherwise, follow the guidelines under Emailed Plain-Text Copy.

Emailed Plain-Text Copy

This is an adaptation of the format you have been using for your emailed HW assignments. When in doubt, follow that format.

• Text: Plain Text, single-spaced, blank line between paragraphs.
• Use MLA parenthetical format for references.
• Do not use italics or boldface.
• When quotation marks are required -- chiefly around the titles of articles in journals or books -- use normal quotation marks: " "
• When underlining is required, use one underscore character immediately before and immediately after the passage that would be underlined. E.g. _PMLA_ instead of PMLA; _The Literature of Medieval England_ instead of The Literature of Medieval England
  • Quotation marks and underlining will chiefly be used in the Bibliography.
• Put the Bibliography at the end of your essay, arranged alphabetically by last name of author.
• Double-check everything above, points 1-9.

Printed Copy

• Make certain you have used MLA Format for your paper. See the latest edition of the MLA Handbook, and/ or the outlines of this format on the Worldwide Web (for example, on my Documentation and Research Page).
• Make certain you have a good bibliography of all the works you have consulted.
• Double-check everything above, points 1-9.

11. How To Send This Paper To Me. You may get this paper to me in either of two ways:

• Email it to me in text format. That is,

  • Copy it, and Paste it as TEXT into the message area of your message.

  • Do NOT send your paper to me as an attachment. Attachments can have viruses. I can't afford to get a virus, so I don't accept attachments.

http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/mel/melpaper.html | furrg@mail.montclair.edu | last modified 30 Nov 2011