Problems

Research Problems

Below are examples of typical research problems that literary scholars encounter. In solving these problems, you will become more familiar with the library, its reference sources, and its research guides. By all means, go to the reference librarians for help. You may also be able to find some of the sources you'll need in electronic format through Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA) or other web sites that grant you access to on-line reference works. You will work in groups on these problems and submit your solutions to the ones assigned your group by posting them on the course bulletin board before our class meeting time on the due date.

Procedure

· Divide into Groups and Solve Problems:

We will divide the class into teams of three. To find out who is on your team and to communicate with them via e-mail, click on the Tools icon on our course homepage. Then click on the Presentations icon. This tool provides a list of the groups, the names of their members, their assignment, and a group e-mail link for each group. You can automatically communicate with your whole group to decide how to divide up the work by using this e-mail function. Each team will be assigned a group of problems to solve. Your team will be responsible for providing solutions for each problem assigned you. You may divide up the work any way you wish. You are free to consult and collaborate with other members of your team, other English faculty, and reference librarians. For each problem assigned to your group, post your solution on the course bulletin board. You are responsible to submit your solutions ahead of class time so that they are posted on the bulletin board by class time on the due date. We will review all the solutions during class time by reading the bulletin board.

· Present your Solution (keep it simple!):

Your solution should first answer the question or questions asked in the problem. Then it should list in the order you used them the reference tools or sources you consulted to reach your answer. Use proper MLA Works Cited format for each source. Leave out all narrative; simply list the sources you used in the order you used them. If you ran into any mistakes within a problem itself, explain these after you list the sources used. Be sure that you explain any problem you encountered, such as scholarly disagreement over the most authoritative biography or text. If you are asked to include the most authoritative biography, text or other source, explain why you included the one you did and not the other available ones. You can word process your solution and then save it as a file on your own computer (if you can access the course homepage at home) or on a floppy disk (if you will use a computer on campus to access the course homepage). Then post your solutions as an attachment to a message you send to the bulletin board.

***** Be aware that some of the data and quotations below are mistaken. This frequently happens in actual research when a researcher begins with dates, quotations, titles, characters, or statements about a text that are erroneous. In your solution of the problem, indicate any mistakes that you have found and correct the errors.

· Post Solution to Bulletin Board:

Click on Tools icon on course homepage. Click on Bulletins icon. Click on the "forum" option on the sidebar of Bulletin Board (on the left side). The course bulletin board will have a separate forum labeled "Research Problems" in which you will post your solutions. Click on the "Research Problems" forum. Click on the "compose" option so you can compose your solution as a bulletin board message. The subject definition of your message should be the number (or numbers) of the research problem(s) for which you are entering the solution(s). Submit your solution. The easiest way to submit your solution is to send it as an attached file that you have saved either on your own hard drive (if you are working at home) or on a floppy disk that you use in a computer at school. You may enter all of your solutions as a group, or you may prefer to have individual members enter the solution to one of the problem he or she solved.

Research Problems

1. Identify the author and work in which the following passage is found: "My sinful earth these rebel powers array."

2. In what work of Donne will you find the following lines:

Who, in the other extreme, only doth

Call a rough carelessness good fashion;

Whose cloak his spurs tear, or whom he spits on,

He cares not.

Identify the title and line numbers of the passage.

3. You wish to begin a study of Stephen Crane. You want to consult a biography, but you don't know which one is considered the most authoritative. How would you find out? How would you know which is the most authoritative biography? Do we have the most authoritative biography of Crane in our library?

4. The Modern Researcher was published in 1957 and had several reviews. List some places where the reviews may be found. In capsule form, what did one review say about the book? Who wrote the book? Have any editions of this book been published since 1957; if so, what is the latest edition? Is the book in the RU library? What edition? What other libraries in the state of Virginia have the most recent edition of that book?

5. What does "kafooster" mean? What does the term "to shoot one's bolt" mean?

6. What modern American author uses the character Caddy in several works? Identify the character and her lineage. In what works does she appear?

7. Where can one read a review of Graham Greene's The Comedians written by Walter Allen?

8. What is the origin of the term "euphuism"? Define it.

9. Where can one find "Notes Toward a History of Restoration Drama" written by A. H. Scouten sometime between 1964 and 1970?

10. What American author wrote "Luck of Roaring Camp"? In what year? When was it first published? In what publication did it first appear? When was it first published as part of a collection of short fiction by the author? What was the title of the collection? Who was the publisher? Do we have it in the RU library?

11. Sometime in the 1960s, an article was written about Max Beerbohm. The title of that article contained the name of the author of The Princess Casamassima. What is the title of the article? Who wrote it? When and in what was it published?

12. The Haymarket in London is famous for what? Did the Haymarket Square Riot occur there? If not, where did it occur? When did the riot occur? What caused the riot?

13. With what nation's literature is the Easter Rebellion associated? When and where did the rebellion occur? What were the cause and the goal of the rebellion? What play with the work "plough" in its title is based on that rebellion? Who wrote the play? When was the play produced for the first time? How did the people of the author's nation receive the play?

14. You are going to write a study of Donne's Death's Duell. Which edition of the text is the authoritative scholarly edition? How do you know that? Do we have one in our library?

15. You are about to type up your works cited page for a scholarly article and you realize that you do not have the publishing company or the editor for the book in which appears one of the articles you used. The article you used is "Saint Augustine et la medicine" written by Jean Courtes and published in 1954 in a book called Augustine magister. Find the city of publication, the publisher, and the editor of the book in which this article appeared. How did you find them? Is the capitalization in the title of the article and the title of the book correct? Why or why not?

16. Blackwood's Magazine was published in the Nineteenth Century. Where can you find a list of the tables of contents for some volumes of this magazine? In volume 166 of Blackwood's what famous Polish-born novelist published a sketch of chapters 1-4 of a novel he published in 1900? What is the title of that novel?

17. You are beginning a study of John Donne's poetry. You, therefore, want to compile an exhaustive bibliography of the work about Donne. How would you begin? How would you proceed? What are some of the texts you would surely consult in your bibliographic search?

18. You are going to do a research project on Emily Dickinson's poetry. Which edition of her poetry is authoritative? How did you know that? Assuming it is not available in our library, what are the three closest libraries that have a copy of that edition? You want to look at the holographic manuscripts. What is a holographic manuscript? Where would you find one for your study of Dickinson?

19. If you wanted to do a scholarly study of Stephen Crane, what special reference work would make an excellent beginning source to help you find material by and about Crane?

20. What is the source of the lines: "The spirit also aideth our infirmity"? (Be sure you have the source with this exact reading)

21. Does the RU library own an edition of Donne's poems that would be suitable for use in a scholarly study? What edition(s) of his poems does the library have? Which one(s) are considered authoritative? How did you know that? Which ones would not be suitable for scholarly study? How do you know that?