Summary

Overview of the literature related to your topic

While research aggregators like ProQuest are convenient for quickly finding sources related to a topic, they can also obscure the often very different approaches disciplines take to the “same” subject. To better understand these differences, you are required to produce an overview of the literature related to your topic drawn from three distinct disciplinary databases:

• The Philosopher’s Index, available at University Libraries: Articles & Databases: Philosophy & Religion

• The MLA International Bibliography, available at University Libraries: Articles & Databases: Literature and Language

• One additional database of your choice. I suggest browsing Articles & Databases by Subject to pick one that seems relevant to your project.

In each database, you are required to:

• Search for your topic — for example, “Harry Potter”. • Write down the number of articles that your search returns. • Take notes on any trends that you see in the article titles and abstracts — for

example, you may notice that half of the articles in a specific database reference a particular theorist or theory (like Marx or Marxism); specific novels within the Harry Potter universe; specific themes the novels contain (like race, gender, economic status); etc.

• Take notes on any trends that you do not see in the article titles and abstracts — for example, is a particular novel ignored? does no article reference a theory or theorist with which you are familiar? does no article discuss a specific theme that the novels contain? etc.

Once you have gathered this information, you are required to distill it into an ~750 word double-spaced summary that contains the following 4 paragraphs:

• One paragraph summarizing your findings in The Philosopher’s Index. • A second paragraph summarizing your findings in The MLA International

Bibliography. • A third paragraph summarizing your findings in the additional database you chose. • A final paragraph drawing conclusions for your own research — for example, based

on what you have discovered so far, what “still needs to be done” with respect to your topic? what approaches can you “borrow” from existing literature? what theories, topics, etc. do you need to learn more about? what’s next for your own project?

Please keep the following points in mind while working on your overview:

• You are not required to incorporate this analysis into subsequent stages of your paper — you can change course at any time.

• You do not need to read the actual articles (yet), just the titles and abstracts. • You may need to fine-tune your search parameters based on your results — for

example, “British literature” may return way too many hits to be useful, but “cover art in Harry Potter novels” may return too few.

• You do not need an introduction or a conclusion for your overview, just 4 paragraphs of analysis.