Why use a research guide?
This research guide has been developed to save you time and help you produce a better research paper. It will inform you of the best print and electronic resources for your topic. If you need assistance at any point, please ask for help at the Humanities Reference Desk, level 5, or from the European Studies specialist Richard Hacken, 5523 HBLL.

* If you are not affiliated with BYU, you may not have full access to some of the electronic resources discussed.
 

A.  Getting Started

1. Select Your Topic
2. Identify Terminology
3. Locate Background Information
4. Focus Your Topic and Form an Issue Question
5. Organize Your Topic into Concepts

B. Finding Research Materials

1. Books
2. Articles
3. Full-Text Databases
4. Additional Resources
5. Internet Resources

C. Evaluating and Selecting Resources

D. Preparing Your Paper and Citing Resources


A. Getting Started

1. Select Your Topic
Select a topic you wish to research. If you find too many materials on the topic to cover it adequately, narrow it to a subtopic or take a specialized approach. If you find too few materials, consider widening your focus (see step #4).
Separate research guides are also available for:
Italian History and Politics,
European History and Politics,
and European Languages and Literatures.

2. Identify Terminology
When researching a topic, it is important to use the correct terms. If using the individual subject elements in a natural language keyword search does not work for you, look up your topic in the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). These "red books" are at the Humanities Reference Desk and provide you with appropriate subject headings and related terms in various subjects. Some examples of legitimate subject headings for languages and literatures of Germanic countries with their subdivisions are:

Italian poetry--History and criticism,
Short stories--Italian,
Romanticism--Italy,
Italian language--Grammar,
Italian literature--20th century--Bibliography,
Italian drama--18th century,
Italian language--Dialects--Italy--Tuscany, etc.

In each case, the geographic designations and time periods could be different. Using these and similar terms in the online catalog, do a "subject" search. Once you have found relevant book entries, you can also consult the library record to find and click on other legitimate subject terms.

In many cases, of course, the name of the literary author and the work as keywords
(example: "Dante and Paradiso")
will be sufficient to locate primary literature (the work itself) and secondary literature (criticism about the work).

Begin to make a list of terms and names that describe or relate to your topic.

3. Locate Background Information
The following are a few suggested Italian Language and Literature reference sources. Look for more materials in the same call number areas in Humanities Reference (and in the regular shelving) on Level 5.
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias:

Dictionary of Italian Literature
(Hum Ref PQ 4006 .D45)

Dizionario critico della letteratura italiana
(Hum Ref PQ 4057 .D59: 4 vols.)

Dizionario generale degli autori italiani contemporanei
(Hum Ref PQ 4113 .D58: 2 vols.)

Inglese-Italiano, Italiano-Inglese: i dizionari Sansoni
(Hum Ref PC 1640 .I5x)

McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama
(Hum Ref PN 1625 .M3)

Dictionary of Literary Biography (DLB)
(Hum Ref PN 451 .A6)

Cassell's Encyclopedia of World Literature
(Hum Ref PN 41 .C3)

The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics
(10 vols.: Hum Ref P 29 .E48 1994)

4. Focus Your Topic and Form an Issue Question
Once you have a general idea of the issues, names, and subdivisions of your subject, try to narrow the scope and form an "issue question" to be researched.

5. Organize Your Topic into Concepts
Take the terms that best describe your topic and organize them into concepts, as illustrated in the concept box below:
 

concept 1
concept 2
concept 3
drama$
or
play$
Italy
or
Italian
20th
or
twentieth

B. Finding Research Materials

1.  BOOKS

Look for books in the online Library Catalog.  When searching the catalog:
* Use the terms from your concept box as keywords, and link them with AND or NOT.
* Truncate terms that may have variants, with $ (for multiple characters) or ? (for single character).
* If using more than one term, nest the terms using parentheses.

The terms in the concept box above would be nested as follows:
(drama$ or play$) and (Italy or Italian) and (20th or twentieth).

Note the difference between subject and keyword searches!
Subject searches should be exact subject headings from the LCSH as described above. Keyword searches are more flexible and come from any field in the record (title, author, subject heading, notes, publisher, etc.) You may want to start with keywords, look at the subject headings found in the records, and then click on the subject heading link to get a more specific group of materials with that subject heading. 
2. JOURNAL ARTICLES
A. Indexes to locate secondary sources for language and literature:
These periodical indexes give you references to articles from journals, magazines, conferences, and books. The main indexes are:

MLA Bibliography
(emphasis on language, literature and folklore)
ERIC
(emphasis on language teaching)
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
(LLBA also available at Hum Ref P 1 .L26x Index Table )

B. General Periodical Indexes
There are other multidisciplinary or general-interest indexes available, many of them offering current and full-text articles.

C. Indexes in other subjects
If your topic extends to other specific subjects, check periodical indexes in those areas, such as political science, education, history, psychology, communications, etc.

* Remember to look up the journal title in the Library Catalog (by periodical title) to get the call number!

3. FULL-TEXT DATABASES
The following are just a few selections of full-text online primary literary and historical sources. When you quote from these documents, the MLA Style can be used.

Electronic Text Collections in Italian Literature
(from the University of Virginia)

With links to the Dartmouth Dante Project

Italian Women Writers Project
(Including full-text critical editions and biographies; multiple search and browse options)
History of Italy: Primary Documents
(From Eurodocs at BYU: selected facsimiles, transcriptions and translations of source documents)
History of San Marino: Primary Documents
(From Eurodocs at BYU: selected facsimiles, transcriptions and translations of source documents)
History of Switzerland: Primary Documents
(From Eurodocs at BYU: selected facsimiles, transcriptions and translations of source documents)
History of Vatican City: Primary Documents
(From Eurodocs at BYU: selected facsimiles, transcriptions and translations of source documents)
Avalon Project
(documents in Law, History and Diplomacy from the Yale Law School)
World War I Document Archive
(from BYU)
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
5. INTERNET RESOURCES

Literature Resource Center
Search by author, title, genre, literary themes, etc.
to find author biographies, criticism, and other full-text helps.
Try it. You'll like it.
For further Italian Studies resources on the web, you can begin from a selection of basic links on the HBLL Italian Studies webpage. This will guide you further to such sites as selected newspapers from Italy, to the Italian Studies Web with links to Italian Literature, Italian History and to Italian Politics & Government. Also available is a complete list of other HBLL European Language, Linguistics, Literature, History and Politics study guides.

C. Evaluating and Selecting Resources

As you sift through the materials found, keep the following criteria in mind:

Type of Information:  Is the material a scholarly or a popular publication? Are there footnotes, bibliographies, and proper documentation of the material presented? If it is a journal, is it peer reviewed?

Authorship: Who is the author, where is he/she from, what organizations is he/she associated with, what other types of materials has he/she written? What are their perspectives and biases?


D. Preparing your Paper and Citing Resources

For citations, the following style manuals can be found at various reference desks:
Gibaldi, Joseph.
MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing.
2nd ed. New York : Modern Language Association of America, 1998.
Soc Sci Ref: PN 147 .G444 1998

Turabian, Kate L.
A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations.
6th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Soc Sci Ref: LB 2369 .T8 1996

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.
4th ed. Washington, DC : American Psychological Association, 1994.
Soc Sci Ref: BF 76.7 .P82 1994

The Chicago Manual of Style.
14th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Soc Sci Ref: Z 253 .U69 1993



If you have additional questions, please ask at the Humanities Reference Desk on Level 5 or at the office of the European Studies subject specialist Richard Hacken in HBLL 5523 (His electronic address is hacken@byu.edu).