Use this guide to get started with your research for ENGL 432:
Middlemarch: Great 19th Century Novel
The cover of Book I of Middlemarch, entitled ‘Miss Brooke’. George Eliot’s novel was published in eight installments (‘books’) between December 1871 and December 1872. Image from the British Library.
Please DO:
BEAM is an acronym intended to help students think about the various ways we might use sources when writing a researched argument. Joseph Bizup, an English professor at Boston University, outlined the framework in a 2008 article. The idea has since been refined and adapted by many others.
Begin your research with an idea and then brainstorm possible aspects and angles.
Use a concept map to help you organize your thoughts. Concept maps are a tool to help you:
Ask yourself: what do I already know about my topic? what am I curious about? what kind of data do I need, and where am I likely to find that data?
From a disciplinary perspective, think about what kind of questions scholars and experts in that discipline are interested in, and how they would ask those questions or measure their findings.
The process is simple: start with a subject in the center, then: