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English

Law and Literature Research Essay

This essay examines a law within one of the literary selections from class. In addition to a close reading of the text, you will need to locate sources to support your argument.

This guide will help you locate critical sources for this assignment.

Types of Sources

While the internet has brought us massive amounts of information, it has also flattened our ability to understand and delineate between sources of information. It is important to understand not only what the information says, but also the context in which it was created and shared. This helps us determine the "right" information for our needs.

In your small groups, be able to report out to the large group:

  1. What type of source is this?
  2. How do you know?
  3. Would this source count toward this assignment's 3-5 peer-reviewed critical sources?
  4. If the answer to number 3 is no, how might this source still be helpful to your process?

Critical Sources

Critical sources allow us to understand how others have come to understand a law or a text. Your goal is not to find critical sources that make your specific argument but instead multiple critical sources with multiple claims and/or perspectives that you use as puzzle pieces to create your own argument and scholarship.

For this assignment, you may be interested in law and literature-specific articles, literary criticism of your text, or maybe even coverage of a specific law or court decision. Unfortunately, these will all be located in different places and will require some dedicated search time.

Start with the library catalog

Move onto specific databases

Other Resources to Know

Interlibrary Loan (is your friend)

Contrary to what Google would have you believe, most information is not free. Rod Library pays a lot of money for the resources you access through our databases, unfortunately, budgets never go as far as we wish they would. If we do not have access to the material you need, our Interlibrary Loan staff will try to get it for you. 

In addition to filling out the form, many of our databases include a yellow "Find It" button. yellow find it button

This button will sometimes open the article's full-text from another product to which we subscribe. However, if we do not have full-text access, it will take you to a library catalog (OneSearch) screen where you can "Request from ILLiad."

NOTE: You must sign in to your Rod Library account using your CatID to see this option in the library catalog.