Resources for Peer-Assisted Medieval English Studies

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Inspiration

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, but keep two things in mind:

  1. The first draft should be primarily about your own analysis of medieval texts and concepts and less about indexing the arguments of established scholars. For your final draft, you will be expected to work secondary sources into your argument;
  2. Any debt to specific information gleaned from secondary sources must be acknowledged in full.

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 Subject Area
Beowulf & Other Stories Old English, Anglo-Norman, and Old Norse language and literature
Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England Anything Anglo-Saxon, from literature to material history.
The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature Old English language and literature
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Literature 1100–1500 Middle English language, literature, and authors
The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer Chaucer
Lexikon des Mittelalters Medieval history and culture.
Medieval England: An Encyclopedia Medieval English history and culture, 400–1500.
Corpus of Old English overview Old English literature; Anglo-Saxon culture
Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse Middle English literature; late medieval culture
Database of Middle English Romance Middle English verse romance
International Medieval Bibliography (IMB) All medieval studies
Old English Newsletter Bibliography Database Old English language and literature; Anglo-Saxon culture
Leeds Studies in English Old English; Middle English; Old Norse language and literature
Anglo-Saxon England Old English language and literature; Anglo-Saxon culture
English Studies English language and literature
Anglia English language and literature
Chaucer Review Chaucer and Middle English verse
JEGP Germanic language and literature

Composition, Structure, and Argumentation

Resource Subject Area
Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations 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. 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 Session 2 slides illustrating the sentence outline.
List of Fallacies A comprehensive list of logical fallacies. For short and snappy go here.

Stylesheets

Resource Description
Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) The most popular international academic standard in the humanities. You can access the online edition via the library.
MHRA Style Guide The standard employed by British universities and academic publishers. Free download!
MLA Handbook 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 My slides on referencing, stylesheets, and citation management software.

Citation Managers

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.

Fonts and Character Input

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.

Styling and Typesetting

Resource Description
Word: Applying and Modifying Styles (video) If you input your paper using a WYSIWYG editor like MS Word, it is important to learn about effective formatting using styles. This video shows how this is done in MS Word.
Understanding Styles in Microsoft Word (article) 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 Use 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.