Ways of Reading Third Edition - Martin Montgomery, Alan Durant, Nigel Fabb, Tom Furniss, Sara Mills 2007

Activity 2.1
Unit 2 Using information sources
Section 1 Basic techniques and problem-solving

In this activity we ask you to test your ability to find various kinds of material or information on the Internet. Include in your answer for each task the URL (Internet address, usually beginning http:// and ending .htm or .html) of the page on which you found the material or information.

1 Graham Swift’s Waterland is a novel whose lead character is a history teacher (with a particular interest in teaching about the French Revolution). The final sentence of the novel is ’On the bank in the thickening dusk, in the will-o’-the-wisp dusk, abandoned but vigilant, a motor-cycle.’ Is there an allusion or quotation in this sentence?

2 Find information about a shipwreck that might have influenced Shakespeare in his ’shipwreck play’ The Tempest (1611-12). Do this specifically by looking for shipwrecks in the years leading up to the date of the play.

3 Find an audio file of Tennyson reading from his own poem, ’Charge of the Light Brigade’.

4 John Keats’s poem ’On first looking into Chapman’s Homer’ was written in 1816. Among the discoveries mentioned in his poem is the discovery of a ’new planet’: ’Then felt I like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken.’ Find out which planet this was likely to have been by looking for information about the discovery of the various planets.

5 Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe has as one of its key incidents a discovery of a footprint in the sand. One way of exploring the significance of this is to ask whether the ’foot’ is an important part of the body in the novel. Find an electronic version of the whole novel (ideally all in one file, rather than in separate chapters) and search for all examples of the word ’foot’ in the novel. Cite three uses of the word ’foot’ that might be useful in exploring the symbolism of feet in the novel.

Reading

Baker, N.L. and Huling, N. (2001) A Research Guide for Undergraduate Students, 5th edn, New York: MLA Publications.

Durant, A. and Fabb, N. (1990) Literary Studies in Action, London: Routledge, Chapter 4.

Harner, J.L. (2002) Literary Research Guide: An Annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies, 4th edn, New York: MLA Publications.

Kirkham, S. (1989) How to Find Information in the Humanities, London: Library Association.

Williams, R. (1988) Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, London: Collins.