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SSI1-141: Architectures of Power (Hale)

Start Your Research at the Library!

Lovecraft Country book cover

For your upcoming presentation and essay assignment, you'll need to read and engage with one scholarly secondary source on a broad theme connected to the cultural and/or historical context of Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country. 

The resources and strategies listed on this course guide are intended to help you get started.

Types of Sources

In academic research, it's important to be able to distinguish between different types of sources. These differences often are contextual, meaning that a single source might fit in different categories depending on how you are using it and in what academic discipline you are writing.

Primary sources are the raw materials of scholarship.

Secondary sources report on or interpret primary sources.

Tertiary sources synthesize and present overviews of primary and secondary sources.

Scholarly sources present sophisticated, researched arguments using both primary and secondary sources and are written by experts.

Popular sources aim to inform or entertain and are intended for a general, non-specialized audience. In academic writing, popular sources most often are analyzed as primary sources.

The BEAM Framework

BEAM is a framework for thinking about the various ways in which a resource might be used to make 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.

Beam Model