You probably already know a little something about this author and literary work, but it's important to find out more in order to write an intelligent research paper.
Ask yourself:
biographical information plot overviews character studies themes literary style critical essays
Understanding Your Assignment
Before you begin looking for information you should make sure you understand your assignment. Some good questions are:
Your professor is your best resource to answer these questions.
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Literary Criticism is discussion, analysis or appraisal of a literary work- whether a novel, poem, play, short story or essay. |
As a literary critic, you will read and study a piece of literature and attempt to:
The guide will help you find biographical and critical information about authors and their works.
Breaking Down The Research Process
The following outline gives a simple and effective strategy for finding information for a research paper and documenting the sources you find. Depending on your topic and your familiarity with the library, you may need to rearrange or recycle these steps. Adapt this outline to your needs. We are ready to help you at every step in your research.
Although you probably started with only a broad idea of what you wanted to write about, after testing your topic and doing background reading you should be able to narrow your focus and write your thesis statement. Here are two examples of narrowing a broad topic to come up with a thesis statement:
Sex Discrimination
Eating Disorders
Need Help 
The Cerritos College Librarians can help you with your research in a variety of ways:
Librarians are available during library hours to answer your questions by phone or chat.
(562) 860-2451 x2425