810.615 Methods of Teaching English in the Secondary School

This page provides library information and resources useful to students enrolled in this course during spring 2006.

Image credit: Walt Whitman's spectacles. Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. Used by permission.

I. Topic analysis, search strategy, search terms

Identifying and refining a research topic

Identifying relevant information sources

Brainstorming search terms

Constructing effective searches using operators ("and," "or," "not")

II. Finding articles

Use the databases below to find articles, books, book chapters, and other publications in a particular field (they may or may not be available full text online, and may or may not be owned by JHU).

STOP!  Before you can access the JHU-licensed databases below from home, you must download the JHSecure VPN software onto your home computer.

Databases that index scholarly articles and books about literature and/or language and linguistics:
	MLA International Bibliography  (All JHU (incl. International))
	Humanities Full Text (also part of OmniFile full text mega)  (All US JHU)
	Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA)  (All US JHU)
	Linguistics abstracts online (LABS)  (All US JHU)
	PsycINFO  (All US JHU)
Databases that index the scholarly and professional education literature (for finding teaching methods, lesson plans, etc.):
	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center)  (All US JHU)
	Education Full Text (also part of OmniFile Full Text Mega)  (All US JHU)
	ProQuest Education Journals  (All US JHU)
Additional databases of interest:
	Literature Resource Center  (All US JHU)
	Provides biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every age and literary discipline. Covers more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers, with in-depth coverage of 2,500 of the most-studied authors.
	Literature Online (LION)  (All US JHU)
	A fully searchable library of over 290,000 works of English and American poetry, drama, prose, biographies and bibliographies.
	Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism   (All US JHU)
	An international, encyclopedic guide to the important figures, schools, and movements in literary theory. Its chronological range extends from Plato and Aristotle to the present.
	Additional English & American literature databases

III. Finding books 

Access to books and other full-length materials (i.e., not articles) owned by the JHU Libraries.  What to do if you need something we don't own.

IV. Evaluating information on the Web

Anyone can publish on the Web -- how do you determine the validity of information you find?  Is it suitable for your purposes?

V. Citing sources

APA and MLA formats and lots more. Try RefWorks!

VI. Other useful links

• JHU Libraries' English & American Literature Research Guide
• How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography. Cornell University Library.

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