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Assignment | Death of a Salesman Research Essay (Kane): Explore Your Topic

ENGL 1302 | Prof. Kane (Spring 2025)

Step 1: Explore Your Topic

Based on your assignment guidelines, as you start thinking about your topic and how to start digging into your research, consider the following:

  • Can I find enough information on my subject? 
  • Will I be able to add my own perspective to this topic? 
  • Will the approach I take be convincing and insightful to others? 
  • Have I addressed more than just the obvious two sides of the issue? 
  • Consider your purpose, tone, and audience (your teacher, your peers). 
  • Narrow your topic appropriately:
    • For example, the topic of censorship is too broad. The adverse effect of internet censorship on individual rights or the positive effects of limited internet censorship is narrower. 
  • Consider the complexity of the issue when looking at your sources and thinking about your topic. 

Step 2: Preliminary Research

This stage of your research is very informal: Google or maybe even (gasp) Wikipedia are sufficient to feel out ideas, because both are very user-friendly and don't require you to have a specific grasp of your search terms yet.

Pro-Tip!  Remember to jot down KEYWORDS!  They are extremely useful when searching the library databases!

 

Although the state of the American Dream actually is an explicit topic of research, that's not the only search term to try! What are aspects of the American Dream (or obstacles to it) that you could search for?  See examples below:

  • Success
  • Achievement
  • Consumerism
  • Materialism
  • Abandonment
  • Betrayal
  • Feminism
  • Depression

Step 3: Search the Databases

The LSC Libraries offer dozens of databases covering all of the major disciplines.

Full text not available? If we don't have the full-text article available through our databases, do not despair! You can request articles through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Often a PDF of the article you need can be emailed to you within days.

Step 4: Develop Your Thesis

Thesis statements...

  • give a preview of what arguments you'll be making
  • usually one sentence long
  • last sentence of your introduction paragraph

Thesis statements should be:


Specific

lay out exactly the arguments/reasons you're using in your thesis


Contestable

if you can find a definitive yes/no answer within a few minutes of Google searching, it's not arguable enough


Narrow

not about all of [topic], but this little sliver of a [topic] in a particular context


Provable

or at least something you can persuasively argue

Primary and Secondary Sources - What's the Difference?

When conducting research, it is important to be able to distinguish between a primary source and a secondary source.

What are scholarly sources?

Scholarly articles are also called peer-reviewed or refereed articles. They are written and reviewed by experts in a field prior to publication. They often to present new, original research.

Pros:

  • Very authoritative
  • Credible
  • New research may be presented

Cons:

  • Not the timeliest discussion of events
  • Expensive & often not publicly available