• Textual Criticism

• Writer
• Writer and the text
• Culture
• Different from scientific research
• Area
• Primary works and Secondary works
• Literature Review
• Bibliography
What is Research?
• Problem
• Scientific
• Systematic
• Verifiable (Findings)
Objectives of Research
• To achieve new insights
• Theory
• Path breaking Research
• Adding to Existing knowledge
• New dimension
• Added value
• Critical investigation
• Advancement of Knowledge-Ecocriticism, Post apocalyptic, Post
humanism
• New Perspective
• Intellectual achievements of predecessors
• Broadening of mind
• Enhancement of learning curve
• From literacy to critical literacy
• Choose an area
• Topic
• Primary sources
• Literature Review
• Grab some books
• Search for articles
• Research Gap
• Cite your sources
Research Question
• Any area that you are raising in your research
• The research area needs to be answered in your thesis
• Research question si to framed in question form only
• Research questions are different from research objectives
• You can have more than one research questions
• Can third gender be treated as any other gender?
• What can be done for rehabilitation of acid victims?
• What can be done for the emotional healing of rape victims?
• After removal of Article 370, is Kashmir problem solved?
• Does teaching of mythology be made compulsory?
• Films-Adaptation Theory
• Management-Leadership Theory
• Theories by Chanakya-on relationship, debts, optimistic attitude,
education, employment, equality
• In Sociology-Feminist theory, social conflict theory
• Psychology-behavioural theories, trauma theories, psychosis
• Economics-Capitalism
• Political Science-Power structure
Choose a topic

• Research topics on English literature initially start off broad and then narrow
down and you come up with your thesis. Using any of the research topics listed
to the left (gender, comparisons, historical background, politics, and religion)
can take you almost anywhere. Choose your general topic based on the
literature class you're writing for. If it's a class focused on gender, start there
and then branch out to something like my example of how the roles of men
and women are portrayed.
• Knowing first your general topic and then what kind of essay or paper you're
researching for (argumentative, persuasive, etc.) can help you decide what to
do with it next when it comes to narrowing it down. Remember this isn't
concrete. Your topic can grow and completely change as you research.
Choosing the literature topic is just the key to getting started.
Literature Review
• What is a review of the literature?
• A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars
and researchers. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what
knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and
weaknesses are. As a piece of writing, the literature review must be defined by a guiding
concept (e.g., your research objective, the problem or issue you are discussing, or your
argumentative thesis). It is not just a descriptive list of the material available, or a set of
summaries.
• A literature review must do these things:
• be organized around and related directly to the research question you are developing
• synthesize results into a summary of what is and is not known
• identify areas of controversy in the literature
• formulate questions that need further research
Research Gap
• Gaps in the Literature are missing pieces or insufficient information in
the research literature. These are areas that have scope for further
research because they are unexplored, under-explored, or outdated.
• To identify literature gaps, you need to do a thorough review of
existing literature in both the broad and specific areas of your topic.
You could go through both the Introduction and Discussion sections of
existing papers in the subject area to identify such gaps. 
Research Ethics
• Research ethics are the set of ethics that govern how scientific and
other research is performed at research institutions such as
universities, and how it is disseminated.
• Honesty
• Integrity
• Carefulness
• Openness
• Responsibility

• The branch of philosophy that deals with morality.

Plagiarism
• Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own,
with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work
without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished
material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is
covered under this definition.
• The necessity to acknowledge others’ work or ideas applies not only
to text, but also to other media, such as computer code, illustrations,
graphs etc. It applies equally to published text and data drawn from
books and journals, and to unpublished text and data, whether from
lectures, theses or other students’ essays. You must also attribute
text, data, or other resources downloaded from websites.
Forms of Plagiarism
• Verbatim (word for word) quotation without clear
acknowledgement
Quotations must always be identified as such by the use of either
quotation marks or indentation, and with full referencing of the
sources cited. It must always be apparent to the reader which parts
are your own independent work and where you have drawn on
someone else’s ideas and language.
• Paraphrasing
• This is the most common type of plagiarism and is the act of the
researcher or student rephrasing a text in their own words, without
citing their sources. Paraphrasing with properly cited sources is not
plagiarism. But when someone reads and uses different sources, pulls
out key points and ideas, and rewrites these as if they were their own,
this is paraphrasing plagiarism. 
• Patchwork or mosaic
• Patchwork plagiarism is similar to paraphrasing—it is when the
researcher or student copy and pastes together pieces of different
text to create a new text. This includes rewording pieces of sourced
material while keeping the structure of the original texts. 
• Cutting and pasting from the Internet without clear
acknowledgement
Information derived from the Internet must be adequately referenced
and included in the bibliography. It is important to evaluate carefully
all material found on the Internet, as it is less likely to have been
through the same process of scholarly peer review as published
sources.
• Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing the work of others by altering a few words and changing
their order, or by closely following the structure of their argument, is
plagiarism if you do not give due acknowledgement to the author
whose work you are using.
• Inaccurate citation
It is important to cite correctly, according to the conventions of your
discipline. As well as listing your sources (i.e. in a bibliography), you
must indicate, using a footnote or an in-text reference, where a
quoted passage comes from. Additionally, you should not include
anything in your references or bibliography that you have not actually
consulted. If you cannot gain access to a primary source you must
make it clear in your citation that your knowledge of the work has
been derived from a secondary text (for example, Bradshaw, D. Title
of Book, discussed in Wilson, E., Title of Book (London, 2004), p. 189).
• Self-plagiarism
• This one is tricky and is frequently unintentional. The most serious
type of self-plagiarism is turning in a paper that has already been
submitted elsewhere—in this case it is no longer new or original
work. Self-plagiarism can also occur when the researcher or student
uses ideas or phrases from previous papers or assignments—this does
not necessarily count as plagiarism, but a student would need to
consult with their professors as to whether using ideas from previous
work falls within their institution’s policies and does not count as self-
plagiarism.
Why does plagiarism matter?

• Plagiarism is a breach of academic integrity. It is a principle of

intellectual honesty that all members of the academic community
should acknowledge their debt to the originators of the ideas, words,
and data which form the basis for their own work. Passing off
another’s work as your own is not only poor scholarship, but also
means that you have failed to complete the learning process.
Plagiarism is unethical and can have serious consequences for your
future career; it also undermines the standards of your institution and
of the degrees it issues.
Why should you avoid plagiarism?

• You should avoid plagiarism because you aspire to produce work of

the highest quality. Once you have grasped the principles of source
use and citation, you should find it relatively straightforward to steer
clear of plagiarism. Moreover, you will reap the additional benefits of
improvements to both the lucidity and quality of your writing. It is
important to appreciate that mastery of the techniques of academic
writing is not merely a practical skill, but one that lends both
credibility and authority to your work, and demonstrates your
commitment to the principle of intellectual honesty in scholarship.
• Unintentional plagiarism
• Not all cases of plagiarism arise from a deliberate intention to cheat.
Sometimes students may omit to take down citation details when
taking notes, or they may be genuinely ignorant of referencing
conventions. However, these excuses offer no sure protection against
a charge of plagiarism. Even in cases where the plagiarism is found to
have been neither intentional nor reckless, there may still be an
academic penalty for poor practice.
What are some tips to avoid plagiarism?

• "Understand the content and write it down using your own words (still need to put the
article in Reference List)"
• "Cite all figures, tables and images that are not produced by yourself"
• "Not directly copy anything from the paper. If needed, rewrite in my own way. When
citing papers, give enough acknowledgement"
• "Paraphrase without looking at the original paper"
• "Do enough citation"
• "Just try not to do it.  I jot down my idea first and if I don't have the idea or don't know
how to express it, I'll find some articles and try to recap or comment with my own
words."
MLA 8th
Books

• Basic Format
• Author's Last Name, First Name. Title of the Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year. Medium of
Publication.
• 
• Books by a Single Author
• Fukuyama, Francis. Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. New York:
Farrar, 2002. Print.
• 
• Books by Two or More Authors
• If the book has two or three authors, list all of the authors. If the book has more than three authors, list
the first one, followed by et al. The same rule applies when listing editors of a book.
• Block, Holly, et al. Art Cuba: The New Generation. New York: Abrams, 2001. Print.
Salzman, Jack, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West, eds. Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and 
History. 5 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1996. Print.
A work in an anthology or collection

• Basic Format
• Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of the Work." Title of the
Anthology or Collection. Ed. Editor First Name Last Name. Place of
Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Page Number Range.
Medium of Publication.
• 
• Example
• Walker, Timothy. "Sign of the Times." The Transcendentalists: an
Anthology. Ed. Perry Miller. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1950. 560-563. Print.
An Article or Entry in a Reference Book

• Author's Last Name, First Name (if available). "Title of the Article or Entry." Title of the Reference
Book. Vol. Volume Number. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium of
Publication.
• 
• Signed Examples (have an author)
• Bolz, Frank A., Jr. "Lindbergh Law." Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement. Vol. 2. Thousand Oaks: Sage
Publications, 2005. Print.
• Piccarella, John. "Hendrix, Jimi." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 2nd ed. Vol.
11. New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 2001. Print.
• 
• Unsigned Example (no author)
• "Northern Right Whale." Beacham's Guide to the Endangered Species of North America. Ed.
Walton Beacham, et al. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Print.
Journal, Magazine, Newspaper Articles- From a Library Database

• Basic Format
• Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article." Periodical Title Volume number.Issue number
(Date of publication): Page number range. Database Name. Medium of Publication. Date of
Access. <URL>.
• Examples
• Journal Article
• Cummings, Scott T. "Interactive Shakespeare." Theatre Topics 8.1 (1998): 93-112. Project Muse.
Web. 14 Aug. 2003. <http://www.press.jhu.edu>.
• Magazine or Newspaper Article
• Danto, Arthur C. "Paint It Black." Nation 18-25 Aug. 2003: 46-48. Academic Search Premier. Web.
14 Aug. 2003. <http://www.ebsco.com>.
Journal, Magazine, Newspaper Articles- Print Versions

• Basic Format
• Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Article." Periodical Title Volume number.Issue number (Date of
publication): Page number range. Medium of Publication.
• Article in a Journal
Carter, Nancy Carol. "The Special Case of Alaska: Native Law and Research." Legal Reference Services
Quarterly 22.4 (2003): 11-46. Print.
• Note: if page numbers are continuous throughout a volume, the issue number is not necessary.
• Dusinberre, Juliet. "Pancakes and a Date for As You Like It." Shakespeare Quarterly 54 (2003): 371-405. Print.
• Article in a Magazine
• For most magazine articles, you only need to cite the magazine's date of publication (no volume or issue number).
• Goodell, Jeff. "The Plunder of Wyoming." Rolling Stone 21 Aug. 2003: 64-69. Print.
• Article in a Newspaper
• Gladstone, Valerie. "Shiva Meets Martha Graham, at a Very High Speed." New York Times 10 Aug. 2003, New
England ed., sec. 2: 3. Print.
Web pages

• Author's Last Name, First Name. "Title of Page/Document." Title of the Web Site.
Sponsoring Organization, Publication/Updated Date. Medium of Publication. Date of
Access. <URL>.
• Examples
• "Argonne Researchers Create Powerful Stem Cells From Blood." Argonne National
Laboratory, 24 Feb. 2003. Web. 10 Jan. 2004. <http://www.anl.gov/
Media_Center/News/2003/news030224.htm>.
• Bromwich, Michael R. "Criminal Calls: A Review of the Bureau of Prisons'
Management of Inmate Telephone Privileges." United States Department of Justice,
Aug. 1999. Web. 10 Jan. 2004. <http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/9908/exec.htm>.
• Weart, Spencer. "Aerosols: Effects of Haze and Cloud." American Institute of Physics.
Web. 3 Jun. 2005. <http://www.aip.org/history/climate/aerosol.htm>.
Parenthetical Citations in Text

• You should cite your use of "another's words, facts, or ideas." Citations in the text
must clearly point to specific sources in the list of works cited.
• Citations include the author's name and the page numbers if available.
• If an author isn't available, use the first one or two words of the title enclosed in
quotation marks.
• When a web page lacks numbering, omit page numbers from your parenthetical
citations. Do not use page numbers generated on a printout of a web document.
PDF documents found on the web will have page numbers that can be used.
• 
• Basic Format
• (Author's Last Name Page Number) or (Page Number Only)
• Work by One Author
• (Dodge 114)
• 
• Work by Three or Fewer Authors
• (Jackson, Follers, and Bettancourt 203)
• 
• Work by Four or More Authors
• (Fitzwilly, et al. 26)
• 
• Citing a Work Listed by Title (no author)
• This led to a rule requiring avoidance measures within 500 yards of the whales ("Northern Right Whale" 105).
• 
• Two or More Works by the Same Author
• ... an article about W.P.A. writers (Brinkley, "Unmasking" A15).
• "From 1897 to 1917, Storyville...became the world's most famous red-light district" (Brinkley, "American
Heritage" 382).
• Note: if the author's name is included in a sentence, only the page number need be cited.
• 
• Direct Quotes
• The author's analysis of occupations reveals that "virtually all female convicts were poor or working-class"
(Dodge 114).
• Watts and Bahill conclude that "outlawing aluminum bats would produce faster batted-ball speeds" (144).