[Download Syllabus: Winter 2019/2020]
For this particular assignment, it is recommended that you find your inspiration in primary sources (medieval texts and objects) in the first instance:
If you are still at a loss, you may want to browse issues of the journals Anglo-Saxon England, Chaucer Review, Leeds Studies in English, or JEGP to see if anything sparks your interest.
Once you have a broad topic, use the International Medieval Bibliography (IMB) to find existing scholarship on your topic (for an Old English topic, you may additionally want to register at the Old English Newsletter Bibliography Database), but keep two things in mind:
To see examples of successful term papers, have a look at Forcing Nature, a volume of term papers and theses on medieval topics by English Department students.
| Resources | Library Holdings | Subject Area |
| Beowulf & Other Stories | <SUB LS1>/LG AB 61 | Old English, Anglo-Norman, and Old Norse language and literature |
| Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England | R CeC 10782/PDF | Anything Anglo-Saxon, from literature to material history. |
| The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature | LG JD 51 -2- | Old English language and literature |
| The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature 1100–1500 | 2009 A 6684 | Middle English language, literature, and authors |
| The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer | TM CHA 5802 [2] | Chaucer |
| Lexikon des Mittelalters | <BBK Philos.> W 1545 | Medieval history and culture. |
| Medieval England: An Encyclopedia | <SUB LS1> PNC 1909 = 98 B 5272 | Medieval English history and culture, 400–1500. |
| Corpus of Old English overview | N/A | Old English literature; Anglo-Saxon culture |
| Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse | N/A | Middle English literature; late medieval culture |
| Database of Middle English Romance | N/A | Middle English verse romance |
| International Medieval Bibliography (IMB) | N/A | All medieval studies |
| Old English Newsletter Bibliography Database | N/A | Old English language and literature; Anglo-Saxon culture |
| Leeds Studies in English | <SUB LS2> 8 Z LIT 318 [LS2: IA] | Old English; Middle English; Old Norse language and literature |
| Anglo-Saxon England | Z 13/100 | Old English language and literature; Anglo-Saxon culture |
| English Studies | Z 9 | English language and literature |
| Anglia | Z 3 | English language and literature |
| Chaucer Review | Z 14 | Chaucer and Middle English verse |
| JEGP | Z 6 / 100 | Germanic language and literature |
| Resource | Library Holdings | Subject Area |
| Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations | B 901 / 130 (8th ed.); 2009 A 2585 (7th) | Combines a composition guide with a CMS style guide. 9th ed. not in SUB/SEP libraries. |
| Gibaldi, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. About a decade out of date. | B 901 / 7 (7th ed.). Somehow always checked out by SEP staff! | The more in-depth reference work of the Modern Language Association. Not the same as the MLA Handbook listed in the next section. |
| Slides on outlining | N/A | Session 2 slides illustrating the sentence outline. |
| List of Fallacies | N/A | A comprehensive list of logical fallacies. For short and snappy go here. |
| Resource | Library Holdings | Description |
| Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) | <SUB> (17th ed.); <SEP> B 901 / 102 (16th) | The most popular international academic standard in the humanities. Uni-G has no online subscription, but personal subscriptions are available. |
| MHRA Style Guide | B 904 / 10 | The standard employed by British universities and academic publishers. Free download! |
| MLA Handbook | <SUB Ls1> IA 230:i = 2016 A 5282 (8th ed.) | The reference work of the Modern Language Association. Uni-G has no online subscription, but you get one with your hardcopy purchase. |
| Slides on citations and referencing | N/A | My slides on referencing, stylesheets, and citation management software. |
| Resource | Description |
| Overview | Compares the features of RefWorks, Zotero, Mendeley, and two EndNote products. |
| Zotero | Cross-platform, free of charge |
| ZoteroBib | Citation generator for 9400+ styles. |
| Slides on biblatex | My slides on the biblatex citation manager for LaTeX. Assumes you already work with LaTeX; further slides on the topic are here, but you might want to start with the wikibook. |
| Resource | Instructions |
| Junicode | A freeware unicode TrueType typeface with a generous set of medieval glyphs. |
| Medieval Unicode Font Initative | A collection of typefaces with medieval glyphs, notably Andron Scriptor Web. |
| Brill Typeface | A free-of-charge proprietary unicode TrueType typeface with a generous set of medieval glyphs. |
| How to Change Your Keyboard Layout on Windows 10 PC | Characters like þ, ð, and æ are easily accessed in any current operating system by adding Icelandic as an input language. This document demonstrates the process of adding keyboard input languages for Windows. Much the same procedure exists in OS X and most Linux desktop managers, and if you work with a more obscure window manager you can use setxkbmap or feed my rather inelegant bash script into your status bar and link it to your keyboard trigger of choice. |
| Icelandic keyboard layout | A diagram to stop you from getting lost on the Icelandic keyboard. |
| Resource | Description |
| Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word | If you input your paper using a WYSIWYG editor like MS Word, it is important to learn about effective formatting using styles. This article shows how this is done in MS Word. |
| Quick Formatting with Writer Styles | Explains and demonstrates how to use styles in LibreOffice (or OpenOffice). Shortkey: F11. |
| Creating a Hanging Indent in Microsoft Word 2010+ | A video demonstrating how to style hanging indents in a bibliography in MS Word 2010+. Tip: learn to do styles first, then switch to a hanging indent style for your bibliography. |
| Hanging Indent in LibreOffice | A brief pointer to this crucial feature in LibreOffce. |
| Hanging Indent in OpenOffice | A concise walkthrough of how to set hanging indents in OpenOffice (or LibreOffice). Tip: learn to do styles first, then switch to a hanging indent style for your bibliography. |
| Why You Should LaTeX [for] Your Dissertation | One scholar’s plea for the use of LaTeX in the humanities. |
| Copy Formatting for Academic Presses | In which I discuss the practical dangers of using XeLaTeX if you want to get published. |
| Small Capitals | In which I discuss the availability of smallcaps in Ubuntu-distributed typefaces. |
