Elizabethan Research: “A How-To”

Choosing Your Topic…

• Ask yourself what kinds of things could you research about the Elizabethan Era.

Government, Economy, Agriculture, Law and Order, Trade, Transportation, Religion, Healthcare, Childcare, Leisure, Astrology, Marriage Customs, Death and Burial Rites, Music and Dance, Fashion, Disease, Torture, The Monarchy, Festivals, Food, Education, Entertainment,(not theatre) etc.

Research• Before you touch a keyboard…• Think about 3 areas you would like to look at.• Ask Yourself: Why you think others would be

interested in these Topics?* Think of 3 Questions that you might answer with your research

Your Topic could be…

“Elizabethan Poets”

Where to Look for Quality Information?The approach is usually…

Search Query: “Elizabethan Poets”

Google: About 773,000 resultsHHSS Virtual Library: 142

results using EBSCO Database

vs.

What you can find at the Virtual Library…

• 123 Quality Results!• And here is one of them

Google Results:

• Finding this quality information on the open web, relying totally on Google’s indexed results, took me on a 27 page search through 223 separate results to my final destination where I saw this…

Really?

Let’s Go Back to the HHSS Virtual Library

And let’s not forget about the:

Totally Amazing Tools!!!

More about this later…

First a note about:

• Academic Honesty and “giving props” to the people who helped you with your assignment.

What is plagiarism?

The Oxford Canadian Dictionary defines it as follows:“The action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own; literary theft.”

Barber, Katherine. Student's Oxford Canadian dictionary. Don Mills, Ont: Oxford University Press, 2004. Print.

PlagiarismWhy do we plagiarize?• We’re pressed for time.• It doesn’t seem like a big

deal.• Other people write better

than we do.• We’re not sure what

plagiarism is all about, so we take a chance.

• We believe most teachers don’t have the time to check on us.

• We believe most teachers don’t have the Internet skills to figure out what we did.

Questions…

Does this mean I shouldn’t quote from, or refer to anyone else’s writing?

Of course not. Knowing about, and including what someone else has already written/said makes you smarter, more humble, and improves the overall quality and scope of your work.

You can, and should use other people’s work if you follow the right rules.

How Does Proper In-Text citation Look?

• If you have not mentioned the author already…• The continuing controversy around whether or

not Shakespeare actually wrote his own plays continues to swirl. Add to this the speculation that other playwrights often collaborated and co-wrote scripts for the Elizabethan stage. This supposition makes “Christopher Marlowe Shakespeare’s perfect ghostwriter”(Hornby 716).

In-Text Citation cont’d

If you have mentioned the author’s name:The continuing controversy around whether or not Shakespeare actually wrote his own plays continues to swirl. The assertion that other playwrights often collaborated and co-wrote scripts for the Elizabethan stage perseveres even today. This supposition, is repeated by scholars like Glen Hornby in his essay, Much Ado About Everything when he asserts that “Christopher Marlowe Shakespeare’s perfect ghostwriter”(716).

Paraphrasing

Original text:• According to Hornby, Marlowe “paints Edward as a

flat character who never surprises us. The viewer watches a highly predictable chain of action and reaction until the final curtain”(718).

Paraphrased Version:• As Hornby explains, Marlowe writes his main

character Edward as a one dimensional figure whose trajectory through the narrative can be easily predicted until the fall of the final curtain(718).

Works CitedHow to Format Your Work

• 12pt• Times New Roman• Double-spaced

Works CitedHornby, Richard. "Marlowe And Shakespeare." Hudson

Review 66.4 (2014): 715. Advanced Placement Source. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.

Quick Visual of what your MLA Works Cited should look like…

The Citation Blues

• Don’t cry about it:• Crafting proper citation says a lot of good

things about who you are.• Do you give credit where credit is due?• It doesn’t have to be difficult…

IntegrityHonesty

Remember those nifty tools?

Yes, these Totally Amazing Tools!!!

They will make your academic life easier.

Follow me back to the HHVL

The Moral of the Story is: