English 102 Process Guide Step 1 Author Surveys: Overviews of Your Author's Life and Career
Biographical Background At the outset, before getting too far into your literary work, you will want to learn something about your author's life and background, as well as the nature of his/her literary career. Did your author enjoy a life of privilege? What was the nature of his/her education? What kind of life did he/she lead? What sorts of themes characterize his/her works? How does the literary work that you are studying fit into your author's overall output? Is it typical, or a radical departure? We have a large number of sources in our reference collection that provide excellent overviews of authors' lives and careers. For a list of these, click here. You might want to print out the list and bring it with you to the library.
Additionally, we have a number of online reference sources that provide the same kind of biographical information. Not all authors will be included in these sources, but most will. Try looking for your author in the sources listed below:
If you're still not successful, you might want to come in and browse through our print resources, or send me an email at nhoyle@tctc.edu and I'll see if I can find something for you. The Steps That Follow In Steps 2-5 that follow, we'll be looking at sources that will help us analyze and interpret individual literary works; then, in Steps 6-8, we'll look at sources that should be helpful in providing us information about individual countries and their cultures. |