Lynn Garver

Cuyahoga Falls High School

Centerville

American Authors Research Paper

Grade 10

Language Arts

American Authors

 

I have included the project requirements and author list that we devised.

American Author Dewey numbers are 810-819.

Subject Headings – Authors name, Literary Criticism

 

10th Grade Language Arts American Authors Research Paper

 

American Author Report Sources:

4 minimum  (5 for Enriched Language Arts 10)

2 book minimum

2 Internet maximum (unless you find an on-line book test—then you must show me)

1 critic’s opinion, with quoted material minimum

 

You will document all thoughts, ideas, writings, etc. that you use as sources in this report.  We will go over the method of documentation to be used within the report (parenthetical documentation) and the method of citing sources at the end of the report (Works Cited)

 

When you write your research paper, follow the following order of reporting information about your author.  Under each division you will PROBABLY (but not necessarily) have one paragraph for each of the lettered divisions.  You will NOT indicate the letters or the division headings for these paragraphs.  You will be following MLA format for the entire paper.

 

Early Life: Background of parents, where/when born, childhood

Middle Years: education, experiences, influences

      Adult Life: Profession(s), marriage, children, other influences, literary career

Literary Style: Genres (types of works), style, themes, subjects

Major Works: List them (use sentences, not a list format), General analysis, Critics’ opinions

Conclusion: details of death or current status, influence of author and works on American Literature

.

Resources

Books  ( I have included some older books that have great information)

Bleiler, E. F., ed. Science Fiction Writers. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982.

Bleiler, E. F., ed. Supernatural Fiction Writers. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985.

Bloom, Harold, ed. The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism Twentieth-Century American Literature. Chelsea House Publishers: New York, 1985.

Chalton, Nicola, ed. Literary Lifelines. Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Educational, 1998.

Draper, James P., ed. World Literature Criticism 1500 to the Present. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1992.

Fleischmann, Wolfgang Bernard, ed. Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1971.

Green, Carol Hurd, ed. American Women Writers. New York: Continuum, 1994.

Gunton, Sharon R., ed. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Detroit: Gale Research , 19uu. (index lists book titles rather than authors, use Gale web site listed in the web sites list for easier access)

Klein, Leonard S., ed. Library of Literary Criticism. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1979.

Kunitz, Stanley J, ed. Twentieth Century Authors: A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature. First Supplement ed. New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1955.

Kunitz, Stanley J., ed. American Authors 1600-1900. New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1938.

Kunitz, Stanley J., ed. Twentieth Century Authors:A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1942.

MacNee, Marie J.. Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Writers. New York: UXL, 1995.

Magill, Frank N., ed. Short Story Writers. Pasadena, California: Salem Press, Inc., 1997.

Margolies, Edward. Native Sons: A Critical Study of Twentieth-Century Black American Authors. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1968.

Metzger, Linda, ed. Black Writers: A Selection of Sketches from Contemporary Authors. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1989.

Moss, Joyce, ed. Literature and Its Times. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997.

Nyren, Dorothy, ed. A Library of Literary Criticism: Modern American Literature. Third ed. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1964.

Trosky, Susan, ed. Contemporary Authors. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 19uu. (index difficult to use as it includes many other resources and the abbreviations are confusing to the students use Gale web site listed in the web sites list for easier access)

Tucker, Martin, ed. Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism. Abridged and Revised ed. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1966.

Unger, Leonard, ed. American Writers. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 19uu. (currently 23 volumes, contains index, also a list of writers in each volume appears on the spine of the book)

Twayne’s U. S. Author Series – has many books on the individual authors

Scribner’s  American Writer Series – also has many books on the individual authors

Greenhaven Literary Companion to Contemporary Author Series – has authors such as Stephen King, Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy

Web Sites

 

www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/index.htm The American Literature on the Web site is maintained by Akihito Ishikawa, Department of English at Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies, Japan.
This set of American literature resource pages is mainly a collection of links to sites on the Internet especially dealing with American literature and its social, cultural contexts. It includes homepages and documents on over 300 authors and electronic texts of their works..

 

vos.ucsb.edu/browse-netscape.asp?id=2739  web site contains general American Literature resources as well as criticism.

 

www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/%7Ejlynch/Lit/american.html  This page is part of the Literary Resources collection maintained by Jack Lynch of Rutgers

 

http://faculty.frostburg.edu/engl/gartner/amerauth.htm  large collection reference works, genres, periods and online text

 

www.accd.edu/sac/english/bailey/amwomlit.htm  (only women authors)

 

www.ipl.org/div/litcrit  (literary criticism site has all but 16 of the authors on list)


www.ncteamericancollection.org/americanwritinggateway.htm  (literary criticism site has 37 of authors on list)

 

www.galenet.com/servlet/LitIndex  .  You can look up your author and it will give you a list of Gale resources that have articles on him/her.  It gives the volume number for multi-volume sets such as Contemporary Authors and Contemporary Literary Criticism.  You can then search your school and/or public library catalog to see who has these resources.  It also contains a list of works by an author.

 

Infohio Electronic Resources – access from www.infohio.org or your own school library web page or to access from home you will need a password obtained from the school

 

American National Biography – only lists authors who are dead

 

Ebscohost – database accessing thousands of magazines and newspapers, excellent resource for current author information, reviews and criticism

 

Encyclopedia Britannica Online– will have brief articles and links to other resources

 

Chadwyck-Healy Literature Online – Contains full next of many American poems

 

Subscription Databases – check with your school or public librarian to see if any of these are available to you.

 

Gale Group has several literary databases including Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Literature Resource Center, Scribnes Writers Series  and Twayne’s Author Series.

 

Ebsco has Magill on Authors and Magill on Literature

 

General Websites

www.aresearchguide.com  Guide to writing research papers, format, citations, parenthetical references etc.

 

www.oslis.k12.or.us/secondary/howto/cited  Template for entering information to create a works cited page.  You need to copy and paste your citations to a word processing program, alphabetize the list (in Microsoft Word this can be done by selecting Table from your toolbar and then selecting sort from the pull down menu) and indent the second line of any entry.  There are a variety of templates to select from to fit most types of sources.  To indent the second line you need to use a hanging indent.