Tips For Research: Finding Sources for Paper #2

FINDING SOURCES FOR PAPER 2: TWO EASY WAYS 

1. EBSCO Discovery Service (via the Linscheid Library’s website)

Do a search just like you would on Google, except this way, you’ll find peer-reviewed, authored, legitimate sources that really inform your conversation. After your search, click on “Full Text” to make sure the sources are easy to find (not behind a paywall, etc). Let’s say I wanted to write a paper on Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which would be one of the works of art I most believe in. A quick search for “Tolkien + The Hobbit” yields many, many articles, including one a few down called, “J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit: Realizing History Through Fantasy,” a book review from the journal, Mythlore.

A Useful Quote from the article: “As Tally reminds readers in the introduction, “the humility and down-to-earthiness” of Bilbo and by extension the narrator, serve to bolster Tolkien’s vision of history, grounded in the reality that “‘the wheels of the world’” are not always turned by men of power, but by the humble, unremarkable, and ordinary”” (Beronio 256).

 MLA Citation (EBSCO does it for you):

Beronio, Bianca. J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit: Realizing History Through Fantasy Tally Robert T. Jr. 2024. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=13447883-2615-3213-9c9d-223220ad6b3f.

2. Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org):

Search for terms in Wikipedia, which is an interactive, collaborative encyclopedia. If you search for simply “fireflies” you’ll get an entire article about it, but don’t use that…scroll down to the bottom to the “References.” These are all the sources the author used to write the article, and these lead to actual articles with authors from legitimate publications. For example, by going to the page on “The Hobbit,” I found a cool article from The Smithsonian Magazine On-Line entitled, “The Hobbit You Grew Up With Isn’t the Same as the Original, Published 75 Years Ago Today.”  

Useful Quote From the article: “Fans might be surprised to find that the version of The Hobbit that they know and love doesn’t exactly match the text of the book’s first edition. Remember the riddle game that Bilbo and Gollum play deep in the goblin caves?...Well in the very first edition of the book…Bilbo and Gollum part peacefully. Gollum admits that he’s been beat, and lets Bilbo go on his way. Tolkein had to change that chapter to fit with the later trilogies, in which Gollum returns and seeks the ring” (Eveleth).

MLA Citation (from the Reference citation):

Eveleth, Rose (21 September 2012). "The Hobbit You Grew Up With Isn't Quite the Same As the Original, Published 75 Years Ago Today". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 17 January 2024.