Guides: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: Home

Required Text

Great Expectations (Print)

The book can be requested to be placed on hold and picked up at your nearest library location.

Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors,10th Edition, Volume 1 (Print)

(no eBook available)

Research Project - Where to Start

What is a research paper?

A research paper should provide its writer and its reader with new knowledge and a new understanding of a specific topic.

What is the purpose of a research paper?

To write an effective research paper, one that makes an argument about your topic, you must review relevant resources and, using powers of analysis and integration, develop a paper that reveals understanding and original thinking. Your research paper is to give a better understanding of the topic chosen, evaluate sources and provide the reader with a general overview.

Charles Dickens's Great Expectations: A Defense of the Second Ending by Jerome Meckier
A good place to start for the research project assignment. It discusses another number of articles on the topic and the notes at the end of the essay are useful in locating more articles for the research topic.
Berkeley Graduate Division

Bibliographic Essay - Where to Start

What is a Bibliographic Essay?

A bibliographic essay is a critical essay in which the writer identifies and evaluates the core works of research within a discipline or sub-discipline.

What is the purpose of a Bibliographic Essay?

A bibliographic essay is written to summarize and compare a number of sources on a single topic. The goal of this essay is not to prove anything about a subject, but rather to provide a general overview of the field. By looking through multiple books and articles, you can provide your reader with context for the subject you are studying, and recommend a few reputable sources on the topic.

Example of a Bibliographic Essay

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/goldman/pdfs/EG-AGuideToHerLife_BiographicalEssay-TheWorldofEmmaGoldman.pdf

Beaman Library

Review: General Research

At this point, you should be familiar with the topic and are ready to dive in deeper to find answers to your research question and/or resources to support your thesis statement (and the various points in your argument). Before you take the keywords you've been listing, you should be conscious that there are many forms of information. Information found may have different purposes and logic.
Part of the research process is to identify the type of information that is appropriate for your audience and the topic. As this is an academic project, you are expected to use academic-level of information, or what we call scholarly sources. They are generally books published by university press and articles published in academic and professional journals. They typically go through a rigorous editorial process, known as peer-review.
Watch the videos embedded in this box for more information about the differences in information, the editorial process for scholarly information, ways to evaluate information, and identifying biases.

The chart below are points to consider when evaluating sources of information. Click on the CAPOW document icon to download the handout.

Currency

What is the publication date or last date updated?
Is the content timely, useful, and valid for your information need?

Authorship

Who wrote the content?
What makes that individual author or organization qualified to write it? What other information about the author is included?
Who sponsored the content?

Purpose

Is the purpose of the content to inform, to entertain, or to promote a product or service?
Who is the intended audience?
Does the information seem credible? If so, can you check the information against another resource (i.e. book, journal article, newspaper, etc.) for credibility?

Objectivity

Is content biased?
Are opinions balanced or does the author have an agenda?
How does the bias influence the information?

Writing Style

Does the information contain a bibliography, references, or a comprehensive list of sources supporting its theme, topic, or agenda?
Is content presented at an appropriate level for an academic research paper?
Does the supporting information fit your research need?
Is the work complete, or is it a summary of other work?