All Assignments: These bibliography assignments are designed to develop your research and documentation skills. Assignments are increasingly challenging in that citations become more varied and more complex. All assignments are to be submitted as Works Cited pages (see Chapter 5 of the MLA Handbook and the "Sample Pages" at the end of the Handbook) using the format suggested in the Handbook. The assignments REQUIRE that you learn how to use both the research resources of the discipline, but also the Handbook effectively. For each assignment, we will select an author from this course (any of the poets or the novelists) and search for secondary works (that is, criticism ON that author).

1. Ohiolink/Kentlink Bibliography. Using the online catalogs for either Ohiolink or Kentlink, select the 10 most recent book-length publications to create a Works Cited list for your author. Use Subject Searches and narrow your choices by selected "Literary Criticism."

2. Find a) a book-length bibliography using KentLink's Subject Search or b) a bibliography from one of the books on your Works Cited list from assignment 1. Using this source, select the 10 most recent publications cited to create your own Works Cited list for your author. Include the book's bibliography as an 11th citation. [This assignment expands the types of citations beyond the book to include articles and other types of publications; it also shows you how to develop a map or geneology of citation, which in turn directs you to the most important works about your author.]

3. Using the MLA International Bibliography, an OhioLink database, select the 10 most recent publications to create a Works Cited list for your author. [This assignment brings you to the most useful & comprehensive database for finding literary criticism on a particular subject or author; it also expands the types of citations to include dissertations and dissertation abstracts.] Before doing this assignment, complete the EBSCO Host tutorials on the EBSCO interface. (View both "Basic Search for Academic Libraries" and "Advanced Search with Guided Style."

4. Using Academic Search Premier, an OhioLink database, select the 10 most recent publications to create a Works Cited list for your author. [This assignment brings you to a database that is less "scholarly" than MLA but it includes some works not listed in the MLA. It also expands the types of citations to include reviews of literary criticism.]

5. Focused Search. In preparation for your final research paper, select an author and "subject" area (some aspect of the author's work or some idea you find interesting about the work or author) and complete a "focused search" using OhioLink, MLA, and Academic Search Premier. Prepare a bibliography of the 20 most recent items.

6. Working Bibliography. The working bibliography is due with your paper proposal, but this is work you need to do early in the semester. You need to use OhioLink, KentLink, the MLA, and Academic Search Premier to develop a working bibliography of all titles (books, articles, chapters in books, etc.) relevant to the subject of your research project. This list should be significant (3 pages or more). You will be reading and reviewing works on this list and producing Critical Summaries (also submitted with your paper proposal) as you narrow your subject into a topic into a critical problem. You are not likely to cite even half of these in your final paper--but you must familiarize yourself with all extant writing on your critical problem.