JPN 251: Japanese Writers & Their Worlds

Once you have an author to research, there are several steps you should take to gather the information you will need for your paper.

Always start by using the Wellesley College Online Catalog.

To get to the Catalog, go to the college's Home Page, scroll down to Computing/Library, then to Library, & Library Catalog. Click on Library Catalog. Under the Research Resources column, click on Databases A-Z, Research Resources by Subject, including the subheading, Special Tools & Topics. Other sites of interest would be our new Reference Books Online section, Search the Web, and the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) page.

[Just a cautionary note about using the WWW --- Literary comments from articles with no designated author, or an author with no stated credentials, should be suspect. Because it is on the Web does not mean the information is accurate!] Click on the Writing Subject page and look at the mentioned resources, both paper and electronic. These are reliable, scholarly resources that should be helpful as you do research for your chosen topic.

FindIt! @ Wellesley (click on the title for more information) is one of our newest features and helps retrieve more full-text articles than ever before. It will also link the user to NExpress or ILL if our libraries do not have access to the title.

Titles for Background Reading:

Britannica Online found in the Reference Books Online section on the library's home page.

Cyclopedia of World Authors (Revised 3rd edition), edited by Frank N. Magill - Clapp Ref Z8468.52 .B7 1988.

Japan: An Illustrated History, 2 vols. - Clapp Ref DS805 .J263 1993.

To locate books of criticism in our collection: Use the Wellesley College Online Catalog. Some searching tips: To find books written by your author, do an author search. For critical evaluations, do a keyword search & enter just the the author's name or the author's name and criticism (e.g. milan kundera and criticism) Once these titles come up, further book records can be examined by clicking on the subject headings for any of the books listed. A keyword search is a good starting point for any central themes or periods, also. (e.g. writers in exile). Further topics can, again, be examined by looking at the subject line on each individual record.

Critical print, video, or online resources for this course:

Chushingura: Studies in Kabuki and the Puppet Theater - Clapp Lib PN2924.5 .K3 C48.

Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan is an online site with translations of the original Japanese Sarashina Diary, Diary of Murasaki Shikibu, and the Diary of Izumi Shikibu.

Figures of Desire: Word Play, Spirit Possession, Fantasy, Madness, & Mourning in Japanese Noh Plays (Has been ordered 1/24/07) - Clapp Lib

Guide to the Tale of Genji by Marasaki Shikibu - Clapp Lib PL788.4 .G415

Noh Drama & the Tale of Genji: the Art of Allusion in Fifteen Classical Plays - Clapp Lib PL735 .G58 1991.

Traces of Dreams: Landscape, Cultural Memory, & the Poetry of Basho - Clapp Lib PL794.4.Z5 S586 1998.

Woman's Weapon: Spirit Possession in the Tale of Genji - Clapp Lib PL788.4 .G43 B37 1997.

Zen Wave: Basho's Haiku & Zen - Clapp Lib PL794.4 .Z5 A78.

Electronic Databases:

To find books not at Wellesley College: Use WorldCat (via FirstSearch) to find books and other materials not here at Wellesley.

One source from CSA which will prove useful for your research is MLA International Bibliography, a database listing articles on literature, linguistics, film, and folklore.

Additional Databases to Try:

AH Search: Arts & Humanities Citation Index has citation information in these diciplines dating from the 1980s.

Historical Abstracts has English and non-English articles, dating from the 1950s, that deal with non-American history.

Infotrac Onefile provides articles on current events, popular culture, the arts, social science, and sciences.

JSTOR - A collection of humanities, social sciences, & natural science journals from the earliest issues but NOT the latest 5 years. A full-text source.

[Once you decide to print an article, set the preference to PDF Economy for the quickest results. Once the print command has been given, wait for the article to be downloaded. When the JSTOR icon appears on the right side of the page, click on the printer icon directly above the reformatted article].

Literature Online (LION) - Has literary texts from 1600 to the present, as well as full-text literary criticism from 1998 on.

Periodicals Index Online is an index to articles published in over 4,500 periodicals, in as many as 40 languages, and covering topics in the humanities and social sciences.

Project Muse - Good scholarly articles, but they do not go back more than the most recent 5 years.

WilsonWeb - The two subject areas that will be most helpful for your papers would be Book Review Digest Plus & Humanities. If you want the citations to cross all the available disciplines, choose the OmniFile Full Text option. (1994 +)

Citation Information:

For electronic MLA version citation information, go to Resources by Subject page & click on Citation Style Guides under Special Tools & Topics. Click on Documenting Sources MLA Style. Now click on the Word icon next to the MLA Citation line. Click “Open” and this will bring up MLA Style Citation with many examples for print and electronic sources. The examples for print sources are given first, and you will have to scroll down to find Full-Text Resources from Subscription Databases for the electronic information. A number of examples using databases from our A-Z list are illustrated in that section. Further down you will access Internet Resources, and various examples are given there for information gathered from the WWW .

For print version citation information, go to the main desk in the Reference Room. Copies of Chicago Manual of Style (15th ed.), MLA Handbook, (6th ed.), and Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA, 5th ed.) are some of the print versions kept there for the convenience of students working on papers in the library who would prefer to use print citation guides.

If you are still having difficulties once you have begun work on your papers, please contact me and set up an appointment for a one-on-one session.

Jacqueline B. Fitzpatrick
Research & Instruction Specialist
Room 247 - (781)283-3497
jfitzpat@wellesley.edu

March 2, 2006

Revised: February 1, 2007

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