home

You know that research is tough and time-consuming, but you’re good people, and I know you’ll want to perform a public service for your peers. For this final assignment, then, I’d like you to create your own pathfinder wiki, an introductory checklist of sources on one author we’ve studied. It’s not intended to serve as an exhaustive guide to the literature but to aid users in systematically locating materials on a topic. This assignment will help you understand the organization of traditional reference information and Internet reference information. Understanding this organization early in your academic career will help you with research in your upper-level classes.   You must include the following in your pathfinder:      a. // Two relevant monographs about the author published since 2000 //. For each monograph:   •  cite it in [|MLA format] <span style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 71.25pt; mso-list: l1 level3 lfo1; tab-stops: list 71.25pt; text-indent: -17.1pt;"> •  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">read and summarize the introduction to understand the author’s purpose <span style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 71.25pt; mso-list: l1 level3 lfo1; tab-stops: list 71.25pt; text-indent: -17.1pt;"> •  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">based on your reading of the introduction, explain how you know that this monograph could help your peers in their scholarly research <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;"> <span style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 54.15pt; mso-list: l1 level2 lfo1; tab-stops: list 54.15pt; text-indent: -17.1pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">b. // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">Three articles from peer-reviewed scholarly journals or collections of essays //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">. For each article: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;"> <span style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 71.25pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 71.25pt; text-indent: -17.1pt;"> •  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">cite it in MLA format <span style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 71.25pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 71.25pt; text-indent: -17.1pt;"> •  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">summarize the article (don’t cut and paste the abstract—I want the summary in your own words) <span style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 71.25pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 71.25pt; text-indent: -17.1pt;"> •  <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">explain how you know that the article is scholarly rather than popular <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;"> <span style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 54.15pt; mso-list: l1 level2 lfo1; tab-stops: list 54.15pt; text-indent: -17.1pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">c. // <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">Two relevant web sites //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">. Refer to “[|Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply and Questions to Ask],” sponsored and written by library staff at the University of California-Berkeley. It’s the most developed and thorough list that I’ve found. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">Your final grade will be based simply on how well and how thoroughly you respond to each prompt.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">English 261: Pathfinder **
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">A title bar indicating the author’s name, the years in which he or she lived, and the period in which the author published his or her most important works
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">A byline with your name and a line saying “Student, University of Wisconsin-Rock County” (so we can go public)
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">A six hundred-word essay that describes one or two key aspects of the author’s life, analyzes at least two themes in the author’s work, describes at least one literary technique the author used, and supports these points by referring to at least one of the author’s works
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">A thorough list of sources and your own writing to include the following:
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">A sidebar featuring lists of the author’s major works, careers, home, family members, and perhaps other information, along with a chronology of major events in the author’s life
 * 1) <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt;">At least five study questions // of your own making // on one of the author’s major works