How long is your bibiliography?

I'm writing my first real English essay at uni, on the circumvention of the mother figure in Frankenstein, and am quite worried about the very slim range of books in my bibliography... at the moment all the background reading I've done is two essays on the specific subject that were in the copy of the novel itself, and one from a casebook containing several essays all about the novel on different subjects. I know there's more I could read, but my local library is crap and has absolutely none of them, and I won't be able to get any from my uni library till the week I go back, 4 or 5 days before the essay deadline, and I want to get it out of the way now. So, as I have exactly experience of this so far, generally how extensive should your bibliography be, and how many quotes (from academic essays, not from the novel itself) should be included a 1500-1800 word essay? Help would be much appreciated.

Reply 1

hobnob

14

wiggles

I'm writing my first real English essay at uni, on the circumvention of the mother figure in Frankenstein, and am quite worried about the very slim range of books in my bibliography... at the moment all the background reading I've done is two essays on the specific subject that were in the copy of the novel itself, and one from a casebook containing several essays all about the novel on different subjects. I know there's more I could read, but my local library is crap and has absolutely none of them, and I won't be able to get any from my uni library till the week I go back, 4 or 5 days before the essay deadline, and I want to get it out of the way now. So, as I have exactly experience of this so far, generally how extensive should your bibliography be, and how many quotes (from academic essays, not from the novel itself) should be included a 1500-1800 word essay? Help would be much appreciated.

Do you have access to the MLA database and a few electronic journals? That's usually a good way of getting hold of relevant articles fairly quickly.
Anyway, 1,500-1,800 words is really quite short, so 3-4 relevant references should be OK (if you put in too many quotes it'll make your essay seem very short). If you can find more essays that relate to your argument, so much the better, but there's not much point in having a long bibliography at all costs by adding irrelevant stuff.

Reply 2

wiggles

OP

2

That's what I thought. I've found two really good essays from books that our lecturers have referenced quite a few times on the net (which also includes page numbers from the books they're taken from so I'd be able to quote them) which I think will be really useful. I also think there are quite a lot of sites that my university is registered with that give us access to journals and stuff like that, but as I'm off campus at the moment they're not letting me login to them.

Also, I have realised the spelling error in the title of this thread, as well as the stupidity of making it in the english forum, so please, no need to point out either :smile:

Reply 3

hobnob

14

wiggles

That's what I thought. I've found two really good essays from books that our lecturers have referenced quite a few times on the net (which also includes page numbers from the books they're taken from so I'd be able to quote them) which I think will be really useful. I also think there are quite a lot of sites that my university is registered with that give us access to journals and stuff like that, but as I'm off campus at the moment they're not letting me login to them.

When you get back, sign up for an Athens account and check with your university's computing service whether there are any ways of getting remote access over the vacation through a VPN or something like that so you can log on to the university server from home. My university does that, and I've found it very handy, although I didn't figure out how to do it until my second year. :smile:

Reply 4

ashy

17

I think you should be aware that in the thread lists on the main page this one comes up as "how long is your...."

Just thought you should know!

Reply 5

hobnob

14

ashy

I think you should be aware that in the thread lists on the main page this one comes up as "how long is your...."

Just thought you should know!

It's an English forum, though. Of course it can only be about a) reading lists or b) bibliographies. Now if it had been a posted in General Discussion or Health and Relationships, that would be another matter... :biggrin:

Reply 6

etherised

1

I don't think I even bothered with bibliographies until second year. But I was particularly lax about such things, so that's probably not the best example to follow.

But seriously, critical reading is all well and good, and there comes a point where you simply have to know the academic 'conversation' about whatever piece of literature you happen to be writing. But no one would expect that of a short first-year essay. And there's no point including critics for the sake of including them. If you want to dispute a previous argument, or need to support a point you're making, then fine. But it can be quite a good exercise (on occasion, mind), to write without too much recourse to critical lit - because everything you write will be your own ideas.

On the other hand, there's no harm in writing the essay now, then going back to uni, doing a day's worth of reading on the library, and then revising in light of that...

Reply 7

silence

16

put it this way, use as few or little sources as you need to (obviously it would be tricky to write an essay without any unless it's practical criticism). if the essay's good and the tutor reaches the end to see only a handful of entries in the bibliography, they won't change their mind about the essay being a good one! if anything, it shows you've kept focused maybe. reading too much around a subject which requires less than 2,000 words of essay can make things even trickier. you'll be fine.

also, you can split the bibliography into two parts - works cited and works consulted but not cited. having read a few bits and pieces but not quoting them can be just as valuable as sticking random critics in for the sake of it.

How long is your bibiliography?

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