Research Expectations:

For Assignments 2, 3 and 4 I expect you to conduct additional, relevant research when writing your
work, and in each case I expect to find at least five sources in your bibliography, of which at least two
should be academic books (print or ebooks) and the other three should be either academic books or

academic journal articles (these numbers may be altered in consultation with me if your second paper
topic is an unusual one). Note that your textbook and downloadable primary sources do not count
towards this number, nor do my lectures, though you should still include them in your bibliography if
they have been helpful in preparing your work. In addition, other sources such as web sites or
encyclopedia articles do not count towards this number; they are starting points for research, not full
sources, though again you should list any that have been helpful in your bibliography. You may find it
especially useful to consult online journal archives such as JSTOR, Academic Search Premier and
Proquest, though the articles that they contain can sometimes be a bit dated.

Naturally you should read all your sources, both pre-modern and modern, carefully, trying to make
yourself aware of any biases or agendas that the authors might have. This particularly applies to internet
resources, because anyone can post anything on the internet. Lots of people have opinions about the
middle ages, not all of whom are academically rigorous; for example, recently some aspects of the
period have been harnessed by white supremacists to serve their own bigoted agendas. Thus you should
not automatically consider the resources that you find there to be academically reliable. To assist
yourself in dealing with this issue, you should give preference to internet resources that you link to
through the Langara Library Catalogue. Do not simply google the topic of your essay. Likewise, do not
use Wikipedia! Additional guidelines on assessing the academic reliability of internet sources may be
found on the internet at: https://www.library.georgetown.edu/tutorials/research-guides/evaluating-
internet-content.