THE VANISHING TEXT: HOW TEXTUAL ANALYSIS IS DYING

Last week I wrote about the sheer amount of bibliography we are using in academic work. I neglected, however, to mention that in textual analysis primary sources are occupying less and less space. In the presentation of my volume La verdad sin fin: Expediente X back in September, Iván Gómez praised me for having the […]

ACQUIRING AN ACADEMIC BIBLIOGRAPHIC CULTURE: SOME TIPS

My second-year students need to write a paper on Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, in which they must cite a minimum of three secondary sources. I give them a list of 23 topics from which they can choose, with the only restriction that only a maximum of 3 students can choose the same topic. In this […]

ON THE USE OF SECONDARY SOURCES IN LITERARY RESEARCH: HOW FAR BACK CAN WE GO?

When I introduce second-year students to the basics of writing academic papers and they submit their first paper proposal (title, 100-abstract, 3-item valid academic bibliography) I warn them to use only post-1995 bibliography (perhaps I should update that to 21st century bibliography?). As I explain, even though in the paper they can use older sources, […]