Week 6 Discussion Guide: Thursday

        We will start the class with a peer-editing workshop in which you will read each other's papers and offer suggestions for improvement.  Pay specific attention to places in the paper where the argument could be improved by some research that could solve problems created by missing evidence that other scholars might be able to supply.  Remember that literary analysis, like analysis of any human product, often benefits from historical information about the values and beliefs of the people who were alive when the work was made.  In particular, knowing what Hawthorne believed might be especially relevant, and his scholarly biographer would be ideally suited to reveal that information in many cases.  There also are a number of other literary and historical studies of nineteenth-century New England, as well, that can answer those kinds of questions.  Finally, remember the MLA Bibliography which you can consult from the library web site.

        At the library, we will work together to locate, to evaluate, and to plan how to use secondary scholarly sources to strengthen the revised versions of the Hawthorne papers which are due tomorrow.   Before you come to the class, read the web pages on what "peer-reviewed" secondary sources are, the factors affecting the quality of book-length secondary sources, and  when and why scholars use secondary scholarly sources.  Be prepared to discuss what the peer review process tells you about the construction of intellectual property for scholars, why book-length sources may not be the best, and the logic governing the various typical ways scholars use other scholars' work as support for their own independent arguments.

        If you need a copy of The Scarlet Letter for some comparative analysis of Hawthorne's later use of some narrative strategy, there is an adequate one here.  If you use it, see the splendidly careful notes at the bottom of the menu page about how Eric Eldred produced the digital surrogate of the 1850 Ticknor and Fields first edition, corrected against the modern Norton edition.  This is the sign of scholarly attention to detail which distinguishes an expert site, though not peer-reviewed, from an amateur site.