Revised Research Plan

Revised Research Plan:
1.Begin with general sources. Look at the humanities reference section, it's a great resource for understanding a broad topic or literary theory. I would also say at this point to explore Wikipedia and social networking systems (mainly Delicious.com). This is the time to just gain general knowledge on the subject, and to start formulating a thesis.
2. Search the more scholarly sources. I love JSTOR and the LRC. They are, in my opinion, the best databases to use if one is searching for articles on a particular subject.
3. Define solid thesis. With the more scholarly resources one should have a sense of what kind of evidence is out there and if their claim can be supported.
4. Outline ideas for paper, find specific questions to research for.
5. Research, research, research. Look at the articles online, and extend into books, which are still with all this technology, extremely important. Take notes while researching and mark the sources they come from so it's easier to cite later.
6. Make solid outline of paper and begin writing. (Research can still be going on at this point)
7. Finish draft and have as many people as possible look at it. Great idea to use the professor at this point or any earlier points for tips or an idea if you're going in the right direction (although that might be better at an earlier stage).
8. EDIT
9.Re-write final draft, cite all sources.
10. Turn in.
11. Make amazing grade and pass class.

Literary Periods

Here are some major literary periods and authors in them.

American Literary Periods
Puritan/Colonial 1650-1750
-Bradford's Of Plymoth Plantation, Edward's Sinners in the Hands of Angry Gods
Revolution/Age of Reason 1750-1800
-Franklin The Autobiography, Jefferson, Paine, Henry
Romanticism 1800-1860
-Washington Irving Rip Van Winkle, Dickinson, Whitman
American Renaissance/Trancendentalism 1840-1860
-Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter, Poe
Realism 1855-1900
-Twain, Douglass, Chopin The Awakening
Modern 1900-1950
-Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby, Cummings, Ayn Rand Anthem, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, Hansberry A Rasin in the Sun, Arthur Miller
Harlem Renaissance 1950-present
-W.E.B. Debois, Hughes, Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God
Post Modernism 1970-present
-Plath, Vonnegut, Salinger The Catcher in the Rye, Kesey One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Contemporary1970-present
-Angelous, Clancy, Walker The Color Purple, Guest Ordinary people, O'Brein The Things They Carried
http://staff.edmonds.wednet.edu/users/hansonk/LITERARY%20PERIODS%20AND%20
THEIR%20CHARACTERISTICS.htm

British Literary Periods
Anglo-Saxon 449-1066
-Beowolf, Bede, Exterbook
Mideval 1066-1485
-Chaucer The Canterbury Tales, Domesday Book, L'Morte de Arthur
Renaissance 1485-1660
-Shakespeare, Donne, Marlow, Marvel, Metaphysical/Cavalier Poets
Neoclassical/Restoration 1660-1798
-Alexander Pope, Johnathan Swift, Samuel Johnson, John Bunyan
Romanticism 1798-1832
-Austen, Mary Shelly, Wordsworth, Keats, Blake, Percy Shelly, Lord Byron
Moder/Postmoder
1900-19080
-Joyce, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, Graham Greene, Dylan Thomas, George Orwell, William Butler Yeats
Contemporary
-Seamus Heaney, Doris Lessing, Kazuo Ishiguo, John LeCarre, Ken Follet
http://www.studyguide.org/brit_lit_timeline_contemporary.htm

I realize that this in an incomplete list, but I thought it was a good start to understanding the periods that will be explored in other classes to come.