To prepare for your upcoming research essay, you'll be preparing annotated bibliographies for the three novels you're reading this semester: Sab (1841) by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda; Martin Rivas (1862) by Alberto Blest Gana; and Aves sin nido (1889) by Clorinda Matto de Turner. 

As experienced researchers, you all bring a wide range of skills and practices to your individual projects and our collective workspace. To guide our discussion and foster cooperative learning, we will collaboratively generate a list of our top research tactics (e.g. go-to tools, search strategies, methods for staying organized, etc.). This list will remain accessible for you to refer to it throughout the semester.

Add your top research tactics to the Padlet below! 

You might be wondering why a SPAN 402 student would consult subject encyclopedias and other tertiary sources. The quick answer is that it can't hurt to make sure you have a good sense of how your research question fits in with other scholarly research that has been done--and the bibliographies at the end of encyclopedia articles are an efficient way to make sure you know who the scholars are who've been working on your topic.

Remember that tertiary sources are intended to fill in gaps in your knowledge or jumpstart your research; they should not be cited as scholarly secondary sources for your project.