Strategies for Conducting Literary Research - 2e

Reviewed by Abby Sloan, Associate Professor of English, Blue Ridge Community College on 3/8/26

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The text is quite thorough both in all the steps it chooses to include in the research writing process and the depth to which it describes each step.

Provision of specific and often extended examples from real published criticism is also a strength.

The final few sections, what would be appendices in a print textbook, are particularly useful in their provision of several practical resources for both students and faculty: these include sample graphic organizers and design guidelines for presenting one's research, sample rubrics, and a sample syllabus.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

A variety of perspectives from a diverse variety of sources is clearly described and appropriately credited.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The text strikes a balance in this area that is very appropriate for literary studies. The potential literary texts discussed range over centuries, and the literary theories, approaches, and theorists discussed range back from over a century ago to present-day, which is appropriate in providing students with an introduction to the range of literary research methodologies in widest current use.

The text also attends to very contemporary concerns, such as designing for accessibility and thoughtful use of AI tools.

All these sections could be easily edited or added to for purposes of more variety or incorporating future technological developments.

Clarity rating: 5

The text is effectively directed toward an undergraduate introduction to literature audience. Discipline-specific terminology is clearly defined as it appears, and the connection to students' coursework and the purposes of the overall field of literary studies is explained in an easily understandable way.

Consistency rating: 5

The decision to focus on one student and one research project as a through-line referenced throughout the text is helpful here. While a variety of methods, theories, and potential projects are discussed--an appropriate decision for introducing the concept and variety of types of and approaches to literary criticism--anchoring each step of the process in one student's essay on one text offers students something more grounded and extensive in the way of application than the more typical "you might apply Theory X to Text Y" brief mention that is more usual in more traditional introduction to literature textbooks.

Modularity rating: 5

Each chapter is broken into clearly labeled sections that are easy to navigate to and between, and each section takes only a few minute to read. I also noticed that, because of this division into relatively short sections, this text avoids the lag/screen display difficulties that students can sometimes face with e-textbooks that are subdivided into more traditional long chapters that require a lot of scrolling.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The organization is effective and easy to follow, combining a theory-to-practice sequence and the steps of a research project in chronological order.

Both the online format and the provided internal links support navigating along and within that process timeline.

Interface rating: 4

The interface is overall excellent, and I was particularly impressed with the availability of links to navigate, both within the currently opened chapters and to other relevant sections of the book mentioned within the chapter.

My main criticism--and this may be different in different browsers, but it is an issue I encountered--is that the Table of Contents, when opened at the left side of the screen, does not have its own scroll bar. I had to scroll down from the browser scroll bar all the way on the other side of the screen. That worked fine, but I would have preferred a dedicated scroll bar right in the Table of Contents.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The text is grammatically correct and well copy-edited.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I particularly appreciated not just the breadth and variety of racially and culturally diverse voices brought in for examples but also the decision to reference older, more famous critics and more recent, less famous critics in moving across that racially and culturally diverse spectrum. This decision reinforces for students that in literary criticism we are often joining conversations that are decades-to-centuries-old and international in scope.

This text's combination of in-depth explanations and practical resources will be equally helpful to introductory-level students and to both new teachers and teachers who are new to using online textbooks.

I also appreciated the decision to offer multiple ways to access the textbook. The homepage offers readers the choice of four formats: "Online, EBOOK, PDF, XML."