Research Guides: Poole English 202: Home

Hello! This guide is specifically designed to help you with your commentary project for Professor Poole's English 202 class. I am your librarian for this course, which usually means I provide an introduction to the library and its resources. Though none of us are physically in the library, you still have access to many of its resources and you still have help from librarians.

On this guide you will find tools to help you with your annotated bibliographies and literature reviews, as well as brainstorming key terms to search within the databases.

If you would like some individual assistance with your research topic, including choosing the best databases for your topic, please email me and I will make some customized suggestions for you. A librarian consultation is often a game changer!

Annotated Bibliographies and Literature Reviews

Purdue's Guide to Annotated Bibliographies
Guide to the Literature Review Process
This very helpful tutorial will walk you through how to do a lit review. You will need to log into view this and any of the library's paid subscriptions.Use your normal WCU credentials.
Databases by Subject
Choosing the right database will help you do a thorough, but focused, review of literature. If you aren't sure which to choose, contact me.
Video Tutorial: How to Do a Literature Review in 10 Easy Steps

How Brainstorm Key Terms

Take your research question or argument and refine it into some key research terms. It's a great time to narrow your search a bit.

So if my argument is: humanity has had a significant impact on global warming.

My key terms would be: human* and impact and global warming

An asterisk * will pick up various endings of a root word. In this case human* will search human, humanity, and humans

To narrow, you could break down specifics of global warming such as carbon emissions or methane gases; you could focus on specific solutions such as changes in transportation, energy use or diet. Or focus on related negative effects such as food insecurity.