Copy of English 1B, Bynum (Online): Welcome

Welcome! This guide covers resources that will be helpful for the research component of your essays for this class and for the annotated bibliography in particular. We'll also discuss some strategies for finding and evaluating research effectively.

Getting Started: One activity to do once you've selected a topic is to brainstorm about the topic you have chosen. Figuring out what words to use to find relevant information on your topic is going to be one of the biggest obstacles you face when researching. 

Once you've selected a topic, ask yourself: what words or phrases might be used to search for information to help complete a paper on it?  Since the theme that will be the center of this course is the "Reality of Fairy Tales", this might include not only the name of the tale(s) or children's cartoon(s) that you may be using as a focus, but also the "Big Picture" themes: aggression, violence, gender roles, etc. Brainstorm and write down some of the potential words and phrases. A good strategy is to keep a running list of potential search terms as you research. As you search for information on your topic, you may discover other terms that describe your topic that you may not have thought of at first. You may want to re-search resources using the new terms you have found to find additional, relevant sources.