This library course guide will introduce you to the Library's resources which may inform and support your research project in Professor Pennino's class.
RESEARCH PAPER
Length: 10 pages (using Time New Roman 12 point font, double spacing between lines, 1” margins). Titles pages and work cited pages do NOT count toward your total.
Works:
On the Road. Jack Kerouac
“Howl”. Allen Ginsburg (can be found on poetryfoundation.org)
The Bell Jar. Sylvia Plath
The Crying of Lot 49. Thomas Pynchon
Portnoy’s Complaint. Philip Roth
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter S. Thompson
Blues for Mister Charlie. James Baldwin
The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. Lorraine Hansberry
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Tom Wolfe.
Fear of Flying. Erica Jong
Subject/Topic | Primary Sources | Secondary Sources |
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Art & Literature |
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Commentary or Criticism: A review of a movie is typically a secondary source commenting on the film itself. However, if you are researching the critical reception of a film that review would become a primary source.
Portions of this page were adapted from Scribbr.com "Primary and secondary sources"
A literature review is a critical analysis and synthesis of existing research literature on a particular topic. It involves reviewing, summarizing, and evaluating the current state of knowledge in a specific field or subject, in your case a topic to one of the films or directors in class. The primary purpose of a literature review is to provide an overview of the relevant literature, identify gaps, and highlight key findings and trends.
Key to a literature review is that it is NOT the following
The above definition highlights the words critical and synthesis because you are entering a scholarly conversation about your research topic, with a critical eye to similarities, differences, themes, and gaps in the knowledge that you will contribute with your paper.
Find detailed instructions below.
The MLA Handbook Plus is available online through the Library to help you cite every source.
Log into Okta if prompted.
In-text citations are a brief parenthetical reference within the text of your paper that includes the author name and page number so your reader knows where to find the source of your information.
The author name points your reader to the source citation on the works cited list, and the page number shows where in the source you found the quotation or text you used.
More info on in-text citations: MLA Handbook 6.31-77
Larson, Lincoln R., et al. “The Future of Wildlife Conservation Funding: What Options Do U.S. College Students Support?” Conservation Science and Practice, vol. 3, no. 10, Oct. 2021, pp. 1–12. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.505.
The way you cite the author(s) in text depends on how you refer to their work in your text:
In the event that your source has no identifiable author name:
Parentheses are placed within the sentence punctuation and include author's last name and the page number where the relevant text is found.
Example:
Multiple authors:
Parentheses are placed within the sentence punctuation and include only the page number as the author is mentioned in text through use of a signal phrase.
Example:
In 2010, Niemi and Hanmer noted that college students are not studied as often as older voters (303).
Multiple authors:
Indent quotation half an inch from left margin. If the author name is used in text, put just the page number in parentheses following sentence punctuation. If the author name is not used in text, include in parentheses following sentence punctuation.
Example:
Niemi and Hanmer observe that
[w]ith the age of college students almost invariant and the meaning and measurement of their education and mobility questionable, several key variables used in models of voter turnout may well not account for varying rates of turnout among college students. Though there is considerable variation among students in hours worked, most student jobs do not mirror the careers they will ultimately obtain, so labor force participation may also be of limited explanatory power. (304)
Your Works Cited page includes every item you have cited in text and provides as much bibliographic information as you're able to find so your readers can locate the sources themselves.
Note that if the article is from the publisher website (which is considered self-contained) the URL falls within the punctuation following the page number(s).
Find more about these topics at the MLA Handbook sections mentioned throughout.
More info: MLA Handbook 5.3-22
More info: MLA Handbook 5.23-30
More info: MLA Handbook 5.31-37
More info: MLA Handbook 5.38-47
More info: MLA Handbook 5.48-50
More info: MLA Handbook 5.51-53
More info: MLA Handbook 5.54-67
More info: MLA Handbook 5.68-83
More info: MLA Handbook 5.84-99
Location makes reference to the container(s) of the work:
Formatting notes:
More info: MLA Handbook 5.105-119
These are some commonly used source types and how they're formatted. Remember that your Works Cited references will require a hanging indent (second and subsequent lines indented) of a half-inch.
Astor, Maggie. “What’s on the Minds of 12 Young Voters.” The New York Times, 19 Oct. 2022. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/19/us/politics/young-voters.html.
Cahill, Cathleen D. Recasting the Vote : How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement. E-book. The University of North Carolina Press, 2020. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=2432685&site=ehost-live.
Gross, Neil. “Does College Make You Vote?” Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 59, 24 Nov. 2012, p. B2. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=83623976&site=ehost-live.
Larson, Lincoln R., et al. “The Future of Wildlife Conservation Funding: What Options Do U.S. College Students Support?” Conservation Science & Practice, vol. 3, no. 10, Oct. 2021, pp. 1–12. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.505.
Padilla, Dynahlee. “Tapping the Youth Vote.” Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, vol. 37, no. 18, Oct. 2020, pp. 20–21. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=146573844&site=ehost-live.
Shea, Daniel M., and John Clifford Green. Fountain of Youth: Strategies and Tactics for Mobilizing America's Young Voters. Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.
Spagnuolo, Natalie, and Fady Shanouda. “Who Counts and Who Is Counted? Conversations around Voting, Access, and Divisions in the Disability Community.” Disability & Society, vol. 32, no. 5, June 2017, pp. 701–19. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2017.1324765.
Wolfe, Rob. “America’s Best Colleges for Student Voting.” Washington Monthly, vol. 54, no. 9/10, Sept. 2022, pp. 60–63. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=158554880&site=ehost-live.
These are some commonly used online source types and how they're formatted. Remember that your Works Cited references will require a hanging indent (second and subsequent lines indented) of a half-inch.
Notes:
“New Jersey.” Ballotpedia, https://ballotpedia.org/New_Jersey. Accessed 18 Oct. 2022.
Ballotpedia, https://ballotpedia.org/Main_Page. Accessed 18 Oct. 2022.
“Electoral College History.” National Archives, 18 Nov. 2019, https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/history.
Astor, Maggie. “What’s on the Minds of 12 Young Voters.” The New York Times, 19 Oct. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/19/us/politics/young-voters.html.
Ng, Celeste [@pronounced_ing]. Photo of letter from Shirley Jackson. Twitter, 22 Jan. 2018, twitter.com/pronounced_ing/status/
955528799357231104.
This and other social media examples including text and video posts can be found in MLA Handbook Appendix 2.
MLA formats each work cited using a set of core elements that are included in the citation if applicable and punctuated appropriately.
Find more details about the core elements in the MLA Handbook Plus or use the fill-in template below.
Take the tutorial or watch the video. Slides are available below.