PRELIMINARIES: Read carefully through the profile of the MLA Bibliography on Dr. Schwartz's Guide to Kennedy Library Research Tools. Be sure you are clear about what it is, when (and why) to use it, its strengths and its limitations. Read information on SFX and its limitations.  (Remember:  the MLA Bibliography is NOT itself a mode of access for secondary sources; however, in some cases, the linking technology of SFX may provide a bridge between an MLA Bibliographic entry and a full-text electronic copy of the item in a database to which the Kennedy Library subscribes.)

NOTE 1:  While you can access this page of instructions and the MLA Bibliography directly using any web browser, it may be most efficient to do so from within your course page in Blackboard, where you will be submitting your Research Progress Reports to the class Research Archive (click on "Discussion Board") and where you can access this assignment page, via the External Links section, from both our class home page and the Calendar of Assignments.  Within Blackboard, the MLA Bibliography can be accessed using the "Library Resources" tab, from the Research Guide for English (scroll down and click on the "MLA Bibliography" tab), or under "M" on the alphabetical list of "Article Databases."

To access Blackboard, log in at MyCalpoly, go to "Blackboard Access" and select this class. 

If you're not a Blackboard fan, you can also access the MLA Bibliography by clicking on the links on this page of instructions; from the main Kennedy Library website (select All Article Databases -- view alphabetically, or use the link on the Research Guide for English"); note that you can also link to the library main page through the "Library Services" tab on your My Cal Poly portal.  If you choose to access the MLA Bibliography outside of Blackboard, you can write up your Research Report using the word-processor of your choice and cut and paste it into the message screen which opens when you click on "Add New Thread" in your Research Report Archive.

NOTE 2: If no report screen appears when you click on "Add New Thread" in your Research Report Archive (within the Discussion Board section of Blackboard), your computer may be set up to block "active content" (e.g. script and ActiveX controls necessary for the Discussion Board to function properly).  Check to see if a security warning about "active content" has appeared on your web browser screen (e.g. "To help protect your security, Internet Explorer has restricted this file from showing active content that could access your computer.  Click here for options. . .").  Click on the provided link and select "Allow blocked content"; at the next prompt ("Allowing active content such as script and ActiveX controls can be useful, but active content might also harm your computer.  Are you sure you want to let this file run active content?"), click on "YES."  When you reenter your archive and click on "Add New Thread," a report screen with editing and formatting tabs should appear. 

NOTE 3:  if your "Add new thread" report screen does not include editing and formatting functions (bold, underlining, etc.), you may have have to change web browsers. These functions are acessible from Internet Explorer, but not e.g. in Mozilla Firefox.
 

Click on the MLA Bibliography Link to go to the MLA Bibliography and do KEYWORD and SUBJECT searches on your topic, using the following search terms: the SPECIFIC title of your reading  (e.g. "Franklin's Tale" rather than "Canterbury Tales") or another combination of terms likely to turn up useful secondary sources, e.g. your author plus a more specific topic you are interested in (a character's name, a specific episode or theme, a genre such as "fabliau" or the plural form "fabliaux", "beast fable", etc.).  To do a SUBJECT search, select "advanced search" at left and scroll down at right to replace "keyword" by "subject." (If these two searches do not yield adequate results, try a TITLE search using the same search terms.)

Because many authors (e.g. Chaucer) wrote other works besides the one you are interested in, and because there is voluminous secondary criticism on most of the authors on our syllabus, note that you can use "OR" or "AND" in your searches and use them intelligently: 

• "OR" will increase the number of hits by providing all hits for each of two search terms (e.g. a search on "Melibee" OR "Sir Topaz" will yield a greater number of hits than "Melibee" AND "Sir Topaz"; the latter would exclude works that discuss the Melibee but in which "Sir Topaz" is not specifically listed as an indexing term.)  NOTE: do not use "OR" with a more general search term like "Chaucer," or your list will be useless (it will return as "hits" every entry in the database which touches on Chaucer, most of which will not be on the specific tale you are researching).
• "AND" will decrease the number of hits by providing a more targetted search; it limits hits to items which have BOTH of the search terms you are searching for (e.g. "Chaucer" AND "Knight's Tale" will eliminate hits for items which focus on other works by Chaucer or on the film A Knight's Tale).
• You should experiement with different combinations of search terms (or add additional search terms) for an increasingly targetted search.  For example, since searching under "Chaucer" AND "Canterbury Tales" will yield too many hits to be useful, try "Chaucer" AND the title of a SPECIFIC Tale; or "Chaucer" AND  the name of a SPECIFIC CHARACTER; or "Chaucer" AND a more general TOPIC (e.g. "fabliaux," "women," "love," "marriage," "satire" etc.), etc.

As you search, keep DETAILED NOTES on the specific searches attempted, including the type of search, the specific search terms used, and the total number of entries generated for each separate search (you will need this information for your reports to the class research archive ). Then LIMIT the list of search results by language to titles in English, and LIMIT again by document type, noting for each specific search how many of the entries generated were for English-language works of each of the following types:  Journal, Book, Book Article, Book Collection (don't bother with dissertation abstracts).  Keep careful NOTES of what you find for your report to the class research archive.

Now, it's time to submit your RESEARCH REPORTS to the class research archive, located in the "Discussion Board" section of Blackboard. To access Blackboard, log in at MyCalpoly, go to "Blackboard Access" and select the class for which you are doing this research project from the classes you are taking.  You will either be taken directly to the class research archive, or can get there by clicking on "Discussion Board" and then entering the "forum" for the topic you researching.  (I will create a "forum" for each research topic.)

Click on "Add New Thread" to create your report.  You should type (or cut and paste) your report directly into the message screen; it cannot be submitted as an attachment.  (If you don't get a message screen after clicking on "Add New Thread," follow the instructions under NOTE 3, above.)  Be sure to click on "submit" when you are finished (or to save a report you are working on).  You can edit or add to a report after submission by clicking on it and then on the "modify" tab; again, be sure to click on "submit" to save your work when you are done. Start a separate "thread" for each different report, using the subject line specified in the instructions. Using the "reply" tab creates a new message that is part of the same "thread"; for subsequent reports, start a new "thread" rather than using the "reply" tab.

REPORT 1:  your FIRST report to the archive should provide a DETAILED AND SPECIFIC account of EACH search you tried in the MLA Bibliography and comment on the sort of results generated by each (as usual, note the number of hits and their apparent usefulness -- NOT a list of the specific titles found!).  There is no prescribed format for your report; you may write up prose paragraphs, use bullet points, or CREATE A TABLE -- for instructions, see the "Tips and Pointers" forum in the class research archive. 

Remember that your report is intended both to let me assess the thoroughness of your research and to function as a time-saving "road map" for classmates who may decide to include the text you have researched in their own research papers; you need to provide enough detail to make clear which specific searches are most fruitful.  If you do not include sufficient detail, your report will be useless to them -- and you will not receive credit for completing this assignment.  For each search you attempted, be sure to specify the type of search, the specific search terms used (put them in "quotation marks"), the number of results generated for each search, and how many English-language works of each document type were included in these results.  You should also note if a large number of the hits generated do not appear to be primarily about your topic (e.g. if the primary focus is another work by the same title, or if your work is mentioned only in passing). Subject line of this report should read "MLA search results."

Practicum (Part 2): Targetted Searches and ILL Orders.  You can use the MLA bibliography to locate specific kinds of sources you will need for your final project (in this case, a journal article and an essay in an edited book collection).  In this part of the practicum, you will identify both a journal article and an essay in an edited book collection that are NOT available in the Kennedy Library's print collections or in its electronically accessed subscription databases, and which cannot be obtained via Link+. You will then order at least one journal article via  ILL (Interlibrary Loan) and at least one essay in an edited book collection via LINK+ (or via ILL, if the book collection is not available through any Link+ lending library).

NOTE:  ILL is a mode of access which is distinct from LINK+ and which must be represented among the sources included on various assignments required for this class (e.g. as applicable: the annotated bibliography, the working bibliography portion of the paper prospectus, and the final research paper).

1) Ordering a Journal Article via ILL.  Go back to your most fruitful MLA search and limit by document type and language to journal articles in English. Go through this list until you have identified at least one (and preferably several) promising-sounding journal article(s) which are NOT available in Kennedy library collections in print or electronic format, and click on the following link to order it/them using Interlibrary Loan (=ILL;  if you are unclear on the distinction between LINK+ and ILL, see their respective profiles on Dr. Schwartz's Guide to Research Tools.) 

How do you determine that a journal article is NOT available in the Kennedy Library? 

If the MLA bibliography entry includes the words "California Polytechnic State University," you can be reasonably certain that the journal article in question IS available in Kennedy Library collections.  But the converse is NOT true -- just because the words "California Polytechnic State University" are missing from the MLA Bibliography entry for an item does NOT necessarily mean that the journal article in question is unavailable in Kennedy library collections.  A responsible researcher does a bit of double-checking before placing an ILL order for such an item. 

Where and how should I look? 

It is tempting simply to click on the "Find It" and "Search Kennedy Library" tabs and leave it at that, but each of these tools, while useful, is not foolproof.  There are THREE STEPS the careful researcher should take to doublecheck that a given journal article is not available in Kennedy Library print or electronic collections before placing an ILL order for the journal article. 

1) Polycat's "search by journal title".  To determine whether the Kennedy Library has the journal in question in its print collections, the first place to look is Polycat.  Be sure to look up the journal title (NOT the title of the specific article you are seeking) using Polycat's "search by journal title" function.  (The journal title is listed in the MLA Bibliography item entry under "source.")  NOTE:  when you click on "Search Kennedy Library" from within an MLA Bibliography entry, notice that the default search mode is "ISN/STD number" -- not the journal title. You have no way of knowing whether the ISN number has been correctly transcribed -- which is not always the case.  Take an extra 30 seconds and use the Polycat pull-down menu to switch the search category from  ISN/STD number to journal title, and type or paste in the title of the journal in which the article appears (NOT the title of the specific article you are searching for). I have had the annoying experience of discovering that the Kennedy Library DID have a given journal in its collections after doing a title search, even though when I clicked on "search the catalog at Robert E. Kennedy Library" in an MLA bibliography listing, I was presented with the message "No matches found; nearby ISN'S/STD NOS. are:" . . . What had happened was that the ISN number in the MLA bibliography had been entered incorrectly.  You can't tell intuitively if such an error has occurred from an ISN number search screen. Take an extra minute to search for the journal by journal title.  If your Polycat "journal title" search indicates that the journal is unavailable at Cal Poly, the prudent researcher should still check TWO other tools before ordering the article in question from ILL.  Proceed to. . . 

2) Serials Solutions.  You can access it from the link at left, or find "Serials Solutions" under "S" on the alphabetic list of "All article databases" accessible from the main library webpage or under the  Library Resources tab in Blackboard. In Serials Solutions, type or copy your JOURNAL TITLE (not the article title) into the "title begins with a" box and hit "search."  If your query results in the message "0 records retrieved for the search [journal title you searched for]," there is only ONE more tool the consicenious researcher should use before s/he can order that article from ILL with a clear conscience.   Proceed to . . . 

3) Citation Linker.  You can access if from the link at left, or from the Library's main page using the following path: from the bar at the top of the page, click on FIND ("find books, articles & more"); then click on "About Find It" on the list at left; finally, scroll down to the "Try Citation Linker" tab at the bottom of the "About Find It" page.  Type in the journal title and year of the specific article you are looking for and click on the "find it" tab at the bottom of the page.  If this last search does not yield any results, you will be presented with the following message: "Full Text isn't available here, but . . .  We'll get it for you! Interlibrary Services (5-10 days)."  RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO CLICK ON THE ILL LINK found on the "Citation Linker" screen.  Instead, save yourself some work: close the Citation Linker results screen and go back to the MLA entry for the article you desire.  Click on "find it" again from within the MLA Bibliography entry . . . and ACCEPT the invitation to let ILL get the article for  you.  You will be presented with an ALREADY FILLED OUT ILL ORDER SCREEN.  Scroll down and change the date after which you do not want the article to the end of the quarter (or whatever date applies) and click on "submit" to place your ILL order.

NOTE: since you ended up using the "Find It" tab within the MLA Bibliography entry anyways, why not use it right away?  Because we want to make responsible use of limited library resources, and if you use "Find It" without double-checking first, you may end up ordering something we actually have in our collections.  "FIND IT" is a handy but not entirely reliable way to check whether an electronic copy of an article is available in many (but not all) of the Kennedy Library's subscription databases.  This is because "FIND IT" uses SFX, a linking technology imbedded within the MLA bibliographic entry which does not speak the same language as all of our library's databases.  For this reason, you should double-check whether a specific journal volume is available at Cal Poly by searching for the journal title both in Polycat's ("search by journal titles"), to determine whether Kennedy Library has the journal in its print collections, AND in Serials Solutions to see if the journal is available electronically through the Kennedy Library subscription databases.  You should then check Citation Linker (a.k.a. "Find It") (which searches for individual articles within electronic journal subscription databases).  If Cal Poly does not have the journal in question, follow the SFX link from the MLA Bibliography entry directly to the Interlibrary Loan order screen, and SFX will fill out the information for you!  But because technology is not always perfect, always check; do NOT place an ILL order for a journal article until you are reasonably sure it is not available in Kennedy Library collections, either in printed form or electronically.

Now, submit to the class research archive a second RESEARCH REPORT listing ALL items ordered from ILL,  including complete citations for these items in CORRECT BIBLIOGRAPHIC FORMAT. Remember that underlining is a font option in the Discussion Board message screen if you access it using Internet Explorer, so be sure that the titles of both the "article itself" and the journal it is found in are underlined, quotation-marked, capitalized, and punctuated as appropriate.  (Review "Titles in Quotation Marks" and "Underlined Titles" in the "Mechanics of Writing" chapter of your MLA Handbook if you are unsure which to use.)   Please remember to use underlining rather than italics for ALL work submitted in this class.  (If you are unsure how to do a correct bibliographic citation, follow the appropriate links from Dr. Schwartz's Guide to Research and/or consult your MLA Handbook.) Subject line of this report should read "ILL orders 1" (subsequent reports should be listed as "ILL orders 2," "ILL orders 3," etc.).

NOTE 2: when you have a full or partial reference to an article, "Find It" (a.k.a. Citation Linker) is a quick way to check whether the article is available electronically in many -- but not all -- of Cal Poly's subscription databases.  Why?  because "Find It" uses SFX technology, so it can't interface with all Cal Poly subscription databases.  As a result, relying exclusively on "Find It" is unreliable, as the full text of a journal article may in fact be available electronically, even though clicking on the "FIND IT" tab produces the message "Full text isn't available here, but . . . we'll get it for you!"  If you get this message, please take a moment to check for the journal title in both Polycat (for hard copy) and Serials Solutions (for subscription databases) before placing an ILL order.  This simple step can help preserve limited library funds by cutting down on the number of unnecessary ILL orders.

If the source book is not in Cal Poly's collections, look for it (using the same search terms listed above) in  LINK+.  Don't forget to submit to the class research archive a report  listing any items ordered from LINK+, including a complete "List of Works Cited" entry for your item in CORRECT MLA BIBLIOGRAPHIC FORMAT. Remember that underlining is a font option in the Discussion Board message screen, so be sure that the titles of both the "essay" (or "book article") itself and the source book in which it is found are underlined, quotation-marked, capitalized, and punctuated as appropriate.  (Review "Titles in Quotation Marks" and "Underlined Titles" in the "Mechanics of Writing" chapter of your MLA Handbook if you are unsure which to use.)   Please remember to use underlining rather than italics for ALL work submitted in this class.  (If you are unsure how to do a correct bibliographic citation for an essay in an edited collection, follow the model on Dr. Schwartz's Guide to Research and/or consult your MLA Handbook.) The subject line of this report should read "Link+ Orders 2" (or whichever number is appropriate; subsequent Link+ orders will be listed as "Link+ Orders 3," "Link+ Orders 4," etc.). 

Should the source book not be available through "LINK+," you can place an order for it using ILL -- but be aware that ILL book orders may not arrive in a timely manner. Don't forget to submit to the class research archive  a report  listing any items ordered from ILL, including a complete "List of Works Cited" entry in CORRECT BIBLIOGRAPHIC FORMAT. Remember that underlining is a font option in the Discussion Board message screen, so be sure that the titles of both the "essay" (or "book article") itself and the source book in which it is found are underlined, quotation-marked, capitalized, and punctuated as appropriate.  (Review "Titles in Quotation Marks" and "Underlined Titles" in the "Mechanics of Writing" chapter of your MLA Handbook if you are unsure which to use.)   Please remember to use underlining rather than italics for ALL work submitted in this class.  (If you are unsure how to do a correct bibliographic citation for an essay in an edited collection, follow the model on Dr. Schwartz's Guide to Research Tools and/or consult your MLA Handbook.) Subject line of this report should read "ILL orders 2" (or whichever number is appropriate; subsequent  reports should be listed as "ILL orders 3," "ILL orders 4," etc.).

NOTE: Remember that LINK+ can be used only to order BOOKS (including the sources in which "book articles" appear) --  it cannot provide journal articles.  Use ILL to order journal articles and to order books which are not available at Cal Poly or through LINK+.
 

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