Independent Study

Content and Methodology

A photograph of a Bahai temple Library Session: Before beginning your I.S., each junior and senior is required to attend a library seminar hosted by the Religious Studies Library liaison. This session will acquaint you with the kinds of research resources available in Andrews/Gault libraries.

I.S. Length: Your I.S. is a substantive research paper. For a Jr. I.S. the target length is 30 pages (text only excluding footnotesand bibliography). For the Sr. I.S. the target length is 60 pages (excluding footnotes/bibliography). While you may exceed these limits, it is not advisable to go below the target length.

Research: you will be expected to show your familiarity with published works pertinent to your subject. Your bibliography is of extreme importance, and should be chosen early in the first term of I.S. Your reading list should reflect your competency in library research methods, and your tenacious accumulation of relevant sources. You should also include a wide variety of sources which present different views on your topic. These sources will include:

Primary sources: materials produced by, known of and/or accessible to people in a particular age, place and time or sources contemporary to that time (diaries, letters, interviews, newspapers, entertainments, books, material culture, music, documents, reports, legislation, surveys, sermons, speeches, etc.). Most world wide web www internet pages on the topic of religion are primary sources--written by insiders usually for promotional or public relations purposes, and not intended to be scholarly, balanced, or critical accounts of religion/religious practices. Some web pages are more reliable than others--be sure to share the URL (i.e. the http:// address) with your advisor and discuss your use of the internet. It is a good idea to use internet information only as a supplement to textual sources like the ones listed below.

secondary sources: books, articles, essays and reviews which are scholarly interpretations and assessments of primary sources and other secondary sources organized around a specific topic/issue/idea, written by academics and usually intended for people within the wider academic community.

Monograph: a book in which all the chapters (except the foreword) are written by one scholar--the term usually refers to an academic publication.

collected essays/edited collection: a book edited by one or more scholars who have invited other scholars to write different chapters, and then collected them in one volume. Remember the editors did not write the entire book, so you must cite the separate authors of each chapter that you use. [See section on I.S. form and style].

journal articles: this refers to academic or scholarly publications containing several articles and book reviews that are usually published monthly or quarterly. Journals are purposely focused around topics, time periods, or disciplines (examples include the journals Eighteenth-Century Studies, American Historical Review, Journal of Ritual Studies, Harvard Theological Review, American Indian Quarterly).

periodicals: while this broadly refers to any kind of publication regularly issued, in academic circles it usually refers to more popular sources like magazines and newsletters which often contain articles commenting on current events (such as Time, Newsweek, Christian Century, Shaman's Drum, The New Yorker, etc.) Articles in periodicals and journals differ in quality, content, and audience. While both can be useful sources, you must not presume they are of equal value to your work. The same caution applies to newspapers. Newspapers are often our only sources for current events, and can serve as a valuable primary source, but one needs to consider the type, circulation, and respectability of the newspaper, the audience, the time the author spent in producing the article, and the topic in its larger historical and cultural context.

manuscripts: usually refers to handwritten/draft documents and one-of-a-kind papers housed in special archives. Archives are special collections in a library. They often contain manuscript drafts, personal letters, memorabilia, notes, diaries, account books, birth and death certificates, wills, etc. "Manuscript" can also refer to the original draft of a book that was later published. One often needs to obtain special permission to use manuscript collections in libraries. Some of these documents are available on microfilm.

documents: refers to manuscripts, published statistics, court cases and records, laws, constitutions, government reports, pending legislation, etc.

Back

July 27, 1999

Maintained by

Madeline Duntley

mduntley@acs.wooster.edu