This homework assignment follows up our second library session on how to evaluate sources. Since it involves the evaluation of two of your sources, it should also be a useful part of your research.

1. Select two of the sources you've located, preferably one book and one journal article or essay in an essay collection. They should be sources that you think are apt to be highly relevant to your project--in other words, they should be specific rather than general, and recent rather than old (although for the purposes of this exercise, select a book that is at least a couple of years old--this will make it easier to find reviews--and you may use an older book if you want to determine if it is still well regarded).

Evaluate these sources by determining two related things: their reliability and importance on the one hand, their intellectual position within their fields on the other. Determining a source's reliability and importance will involve considering and investigating the credentials of the author and/or the editor (has this person published on this topic or related topics before? what university is the person affiliated with?), the credentials of the publisher of the book or of the journal (is it a university press? if so, is it an important press and/or one that publishes on this topic? if not, is it a publisher of importance? In the case of a journal, what university or organization is the journal affiliated with? who is on its editorial board, and what institutions are they from? If it’s a literature journal, check the MLA Directory of Periodicals to see how many submissions it receives and publishes each year; if it’s a journal from a different field, look it up in Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory in the Mardigian Library’s online research databases), and what other scholars have said about the work in reviews of it. Determining the intellectual position of a source will involve examining both what the author (usually in the preface or introduction, abstract, back-page blurb, etc.) and what reviewers say of it.

When you have completed your investigation, write a three-paragraph evaluation of each source. In the first paragraph, state whether your source is reliable and important, and explain the basis for your assessment. In the second, explain the position of your source within its field. Is this work regarded as a definitive, authoritative study of the topic? Is it breaking new ground? expanding on work already accepted? challenging a consensus? part of a debate among competing scholarly "camps" on the topic? If it's a work of literary criticism, is it representative of any of the critical approaches we've studied? In the third, state whether this source will be useful to you in your project, and explain why or why not.

2. Select one of the recent biographies on your author. Since biographies are not the same, you need to learn more about the author, audience, publisher, and approach to determine if this is a biography you can or should use. Scholarly biographies of literary figures usually contain extensive notes and bibliographies and are often (but by no means always) published by university presses. While scholarly biographies are aimed at a general audience as well as an academic one, other biographies may target a general audience only. Some literary biographies are designed as brief introductions to an author for students or general readers who only want basic background on the author. Since biography is usually interpretive, presenting a particular “reading” of a life, different biographies may approach the figure from different perspectives. Critical biographies contain extensive analysis and interpretation of an author’s literary works in addition to a narrative of the author’s life.

In scholarly research, we try to rely on the biography regarded as “standard” or “definitive,” the one seen as most scholarly, complete, and current, if it exists. We still often consult other biographies even if a standard biography exists, but we take special care to assess the reliability of those we cite.

Investigate your biography by determining the answers to the following questions: Is my biographer a scholar? a journalist? someone with special knowledge of nineteenth-century England? with experience writing biographies? For what audiences is my biography intended? Who published it? if it’s not a university press, is it a major trade publisher? Is my biography a critical biography? Is it the standard biography? if not, what is, and is mine still reliable? Does my biography offer a particular perspective or reading of Bronte’s or Dickens’s life? if so, how is that interpretation regarded by scholars?

Submit your evaluation in hard copy form no later than in class on February 24.

Why bother with this? Well, two reasons. One is general and applicable to all research, academic or non-academic. We live in a world where the volume of information is growing exponentially. This information is also becoming increasingly easy to access, but that in turn makes the need for selectivity even more vital. Only a Dickens specialist has the time to read all the information on or relevant to Dickens, so the rest of us have to learn how to locate and select the best information on Dickens for our needs. In other words, I don't expect your research projects to cite twenty sources (although they can). I'm much more interested in your ability to identify and use a smaller group of the best, most relevant sources. This doesn't mean you'll spend less time reading sources, but it does mean you'll spend more time than you probably normally would determining which are the best sources, so that you can then devote more attention to those sources rather than reading widely but probably shallowly and haphazardly. The second reason is more specific to the kind of research English concentrators do. As I said when we were discussing the various critical articles on Jane Eyre, I want you to use criticism critically. I want you not to "cherry-pick" the criticism for ripe, juicy quotations, but to use criticism that suits your purposes, aware of a piece's critical perspective and overall argument. Doing that requires you to evaluate your sources and to read them in a fashion almost diametrically opposite to what I usually see.