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Quick Tips on Preparing For Research

Before you start:

  • understand the key terms you may be using as well as the general area that interests you;
  • think about ways to narrow your topic, making it as specific as possible (unless you have been given a specific topic to research!);
  • create a thesis statement;
  • list  the main concepts (key words) included in your thesis statement (research question), then based on your readings;
  • find as many synonyms as you can for each main concept. You are now ready to start searching in the library's catalogue and databases.

When you are looking for definitions or if you don’t know much about a specific subject, reference works such as dictionaries and encyclopedias become invaluable because they contain relatively short—and accessible—articles. These articles often lay out the parameters of a subject and can assist you in trying to narrow your topic. Often such articles are accompanied by lists of readings (bibliographies) which allow you to explore your topic further.

Dictionaries

The Oxford English Dictionary is  the most comprehensive dictionary of the English language  in part becuase it includes words as they first entered the language and any change in their meanings over time.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of  Literary Terms (2001) provides clear, concise, and often witty definitions of the most troublesome literary terms from abjection to zeugma.

Encyclopedias for English

Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. 2002. Print.

Literature Resource Centre. Online. Includes critical essays, work and topic overviews, full-text works, biographies, and more to provide a wealth of information on authors, their works, and literary movements.  Covers all genres and disciplines, all time periods and all parts of the world.

The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2009. Print.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. 2004. Online.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of British Literature. 2006. Online. Covers the entire history of literature in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland in the major literary languages (Anglo-Saxon, English, Welsh, Scots, Irish, and Latin).

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature. 2006. Online.

Extra Encyclopedia for English

Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. 2001. Online/Print. This encyclopedia brings together different disciplines including philosophy, literature, literary theory, and cultural studies in the broad study of “the art of persuasion.”