Research Methodology in Humanities, especially, in English literary studies is important to the aspirants of M.Phil, Ph.D. or to the research scholars/teachers who wish to apply for minor or major research projects to UGC or similar funding agencies. This presentation gives an outline of model syllabus for such courses. It also presents some views of Richard Altick and John Fenstermaker from 'The Art of Literary Research'.

1. Research Methodology
Syllabus Design
&
Introduction

2. Objectives
• To prepare students for quality research and
publication.
• To orient towards the importance of research
in the field of humanities.
• To inspire for writing research papers for
seminars, conferences and research journals.
• To practice the technicalities of research and
writing articles/dissertations/thesis

3. Unit
Detailed Syllabus
Teaching
Hours
Marks
Weightage
1
Importance of Research – MLA Handbook 7th Ed.
18 Hours
20
18 Hours
20
18 Hours
20
18 Hours
20
18 Hours
20
Research and Writing, Plagiarism and Academic Integrity, The Format of Research
Proposal, Documentation: Preparing the List of Works Cited, Citing Sources, Guides to
Writing
2
Writing skills for Academic Purpose - Liz Hamp-Lyons & Ben Heasley.
Difference between Academic and non-Academic Writing, The Mechanics of Writing.
3
The Art of Literary Research – Richard Altick and Fenstermaker.
Voation of Research Scholar, The Spirit of Scholarship, Textual Study, The Search for Origins,
Cultivating a Sense of the Past, Finding Materials, Libraries, The Philosophy of Composition,
The Scholar’s Life.
4
The Handbook To Literary Research by W. R. Owens & Delia Da Sousa
Correa.
Tools and Techniques of Literary Research: Using Online and Print Resources, Textual
Scholarship and Book History, Issues and Approaches in Literary Research, Planning and
Completing a Research Project, References
5
Research Proposal (UGC – MRP) and Research Articles (for publication
in journals)
How to apply for UGC MRP? How to write research article and get it published?

4. The Philosophy behind Literary Research
• The Art of Literary Research – Richard Altick and
John Fenstermaker
– The purposes, methods, and pleasures of research
in Literatures.
– Scholar’s vocation
– The spirit of Scholarship
– The Scholar’s Life

5. The Praxis
• Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson,
or skill is enacted, practiced, embodied, or
realized.
• "Praxis" may also refer to the act of engaging,
applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing
ideas.
• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Paper
– Seventh Edition.

6. What Is MLA Style?
• All fields of research agree on the need to document scholarly
borrowings, but documentation conventions vary because of the
different needs of scholarly disciplines. MLA style for
documentation is widely used in the humanities, especially in
writing on language and literature. Generally simpler and more
concise than other styles, MLA style features brief parenthetical
citations in the text keyed to an alphabetical list of works cited that
appears at the end of the work.
• MLA style has been widely adopted by schools, academic
departments, and instructors for over half a century. The
association's guidelines are also used by over 1,100 scholarly and
literary journals, newsletters, and magazines and by many
university and commercial presses. The MLA's guidelines are
followed throughout North America and in Brazil, China, India,
Japan, Taiwan, and other countries around the world.
• http://www.mla.org/style

7. Important Stages of Research
• Scope of Research – philosophical argument
• The Literature Review – process of writing
research article/dissertation
– Click here to view presentation
• Citation – acknowledge the source, avoid
plagiarism

8. Some quotes from ALR
• Genuine scholarship is one of the highest
successes which our race can achieve. – E. M.
Forster Aspects of the Novel (New York, 1927)
22.
• Life is continuous process of finding the holes
and plugging them and making as few new
ones as possible. – Sir William Haley…

9. Vocation of Research Scholar
• What is the vocation of a scholar?
• Difference between Critic, Researcher and
Scholar?
• What are the chief qualities of mind and
temperament that go to make up a successful
and happy scholar?
• Difference between Researcher and Scholar.
– Critic and scholar – George Whalley: ‘No true scholar
can lack critical acumen; and the scholar’s eye is
rather like the poet’s… pg 2

10. Vocation of Research Scholar
• Literature is the product of human being’s
imagination and intellect – study of author –
Sainte-Beuve – like the tree, like the fruit… (pg
3)
• No writer writes in vacuum.
• A book has both antecedents and a history of
its own. (pg 3,4) – T.S. Eliot.
• LR – devoted to the enlightenment of
criticism.

11. Vocation of Research Scholar
• Literary history – literature is an eloquent
artistic document – autobiography of the
race’s soul. (pg. 5)
• The reconstruction and interpretation of our
literary past has its own dignity. (pg. 5)
• LR – immeasurable and intensely real
personal satisfaction.

12. Vocation of Research Scholar
• Pg. 12 – second last para – ‘… given a fair
degree of imagination, originality of
approach, solidity of learning, and the wish
and the will to see works of literary art and
their creators from new perspectives,
everyone called to the profession will discover
amply rewarding projects’.
• Publish or perish (pg. 13)

13. Vocation of Research Scholar
• What are the chief qualities of mind and
temperament that go to make up a successful
and happy scholar?
• Law and Journalism
• Principles of evidence and resourcefulness.
• Organizational skill – ability to put facts
together in a pattern.

14. Vocation of Research Scholar
• Ideal researcher must ‘love’ literature for its own
sake – as an art.
• Insatiable readers – the habit acquired earlier the
better. (pg. 15)
• Intellectual sympathy – Helen Vandler… (Pg. 16)
• A vivid sense of history – (pg. 16).
• Scientific approach and LR (pg. 17)
• Substance and spirit of such extra literary training
gives advantage.

15. Vocation of Research Scholar
• No margin of error is allowed. (pg 18)
• Logan Pearsall Smith – ‘The test of vocation is
the love of the drudgery it involves…’
• With all these, ‘a creative imagination’… pg.
18.

16. Vocation of Research Scholar
• Researcher and scholar:
• “Learning without wisdom is a load of books on an
ass’s back.”
• One can be a researcher, full of knowledge, without
also being a scholar.
• Researcher is the means, scholarship the end.
• Research is an occupation, scholarship is a habit of
mind and a way of life.
• Scholars are more than researchers, for while they
may be gifted in the discovery and assessment of
facts, they are, besides, persons of broad and
luminous learning.

17. Interpretation is the lifeblood of research
• John Livingston Lowes:
“Humane scholarship… moves and must move within two worlds
at once – the world of scientific method and the world, in
whatever degree, of creative art. The postulates of the two are
radically different. And our exquisitely difficult task is to
conform at once to the stipulations of each without infringing
on those of the other. The path of least resistance is to follow
one and let the other go. Research, which is the primary
instrument of science, is felt to be the easier and it is also the
more alluring. I too have heard the Sirens sing, and I know
whereof I speak. And so we tend to become enamored of the
methods, and at times to forget the end; to allow, in a word,
the fascination of the means to distract us from the very
object for which they are employed. And that end is, in the
broadest sense of the word, interpretation – the
interpretation, in the light of all that our researches can
reveal, of the literature which is our professional concern.”
(Pg. 21)

18. The Scholar’s Life
• Pg. 247: Literary scholars never cease being
scholar.
• Responsibilities remote from pursuit of
knowledge.
• … scholars cannot suppress that portion of
their consciousness that insists on asking
questions about literary matters and seeking
answers.
• 24X7 bookish excitement!!!

19. The Scholar’s Life
• Professionalized literary scholarship - down
the century it has become a highly organized
and sophisticated intellectual discipline.
• The ‘golden age’ when research dominated
English studies – 1920s to 1960s – ‘New
Criticism’ – Cleanth Brooks, J.C. Ransom, Allen
Tate > Northrop Frye > Structuralism.

20. The Scholar’s Life
• Some historians and critics – early formative
decades has not lost breath of learning and
intellectual rigor.
• Wayne Booth – regret formal aspect of literary
texts – ‘isolated from the influences of ethics,
politics, history, logic, dialectic, and even
grammar.’

21. The Scholar’s Life
• Such opposing views – broadened the traditional
canon to embrace numerous kinds of writing,
gender, ethnic oriented works.
• The scope of English studies now also includes
writing theory and pedagogy.
• The meanings of ‘meaning’ have been drastically
redefined.
• The immortals of the profession would scarcely
recognize the profession of English studies they
helped found and develop.

22. The Scholar’s Life
• The study of literature remains at base an
intensely private pursuit.
• No one ever entered the profession burning
with a single-minded ambition to read papers
in seminars – or – printing papers in learned
journals.
• It has sharper satisfaction – enabled them to
do what they wanted to.

23. The Scholar’s Life
• Numerous Perquisite in research:
• Lifelong company of books and good human
companionship. (pg 250)
• Pleasure of travel, frequent encounter with
delightful and helpful people.
• In scholarship there is no prejudice born of
national origin, creed, colour or social class –
we live in truest democracy of all, the
democracy of the intellect. (pg 250)

24. The Scholar’s Life
• Code of manners and ethics: (pg 251)
– the proposition at heart is – “we are working
together for the benefit of society, not for private
aggrandizement.”
– Scientists and inventors have their patents, but in
humane learning all knowledge is in the public
domain.
– Property rights should be respected.
– More energetic scholar should be allowed to mine
it deeper – spirit of scholarship.

25. The Scholar’s Life
• Two principles: (pg 252)
– Let others know what you are working on
– Keep up with what others are doing – not only in
your field but in others as well.

26. The Scholar’s Life
• Difference of opinion – it will always be, it
should be.
• Scholarly competence not distributed evenly –
so lapses in judgment & imperfections may
call for comment.
• Otherwise literary study would stagnate.
• But debate and correction should be
conducted with dignity and courtesy. (pg. 253)

27. The Scholar’s Life
• Humanities in perennial crisis – (pg253-255)
– Achievements have unreal value – futile – add
nothing to the sum of human wisdom or
happiness.
– Our fault –
– What can be done? (last para – 254-55)

28. Thank you
dilipbarad@gmail.com
• Must Read Books for Research Methodology in Language
and Literature:
– Writing skills for Academic Purpose - Liz Hamp-Lyons & Ben
Heasley. CUP.
– The Art of Literary Research – Richard Altick and Fenstermaker.
W.W. Norton. 1963-1993
– The Handbook To Literary Research by W. R. Owens & Delia Da
Sousa Correa. Routledge. 2010.
– The Scholar-Critic: An Introduction to Literary Research By
Frederick Wilse Bateson. Routledge, 1972.
– MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 2009. Seventh
edition. New Delhi: Affiliated East-West Press with Permission
from Modern Language Association of America.