PORT 5150 Survey of Brazilian Literature-Literatura e Marginalidade (Schincariol): Research Process

The theme of your final proposal and paper will be chosen by you, having in mind one of the authors covered in "Bibliografia Obrigatória".

Your research topic may be born through different channels:

• Read your syllabus carefully and pay attention to a topic covered in class that you found interesting and that you do not know much about it.
  • You may choose a topic that is related to the central theme of the course and is of interest to you.
• Expand on a subject that is highlighted in one of the novels or articles you read about "escritores da periferia, " literatura marginale, or any other topic you found relevant.
• Browse online resources to gather topic ideas.
• Browse background sources to gather topic ideas.

Your research question will be related to your topic. This question usually answers a matter that has not been covered by previous scholarship.

Developing Research Questions: Your Purpose

Consider where your questions will lead you. Will your questions:

• Compare and contrast
  • How are the topics covered by an "escritor da periferia"  alike or different from topics covered by other authors?
  • How is author X's contribution different from author Y's?
  • How is the same topic covered by different authors?
• Associate your topic with another 
  • How did a topic happen in relation to another topic?
• Interpret the state of your topic
  • Explain the significance of "literature marginal" and how you can measure this significance
• Explore possibilities or outcomes
  • What are the consequences of X
  • How does X affect Y
• Lead to a call for action or change
  • What are the recommendations you may offer to the issue presented in your paper?
• Argue for a particular stance
  • Present opposing views and argue in favor or against a view

Background sources are really helpful at the beginning stages of your research process. These sources will give us ideas for research topics, keywords, and even provide further information that may be useful. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, and even Wikipedia are common background sources. 

Keywords and related terms are those words and phrases that are related to the topic of your research. These terms may be synonymous with a word or a related term. We use keywords to enhance our searches and gather as much scholarship as we can in relation to a topic.

Look at the example below and see how these words are related to my topic:

Example

My topic: Expressando descontentamento social: violência urbana na literatura

Exercise

Boolean operators help you connect, expand or exclude your searches.

Examples:

Carolina Maria de Jesus AND "violência social brasileira"

 marginalidade OR Vozes marginais na literatura

A representação da mulher AND Carolina Maria de Jesus OR estereótipo

 os pobres  AND "literatura periférica" OR resistência OR revolta

 "literatura marginal" OR "literatura periférica" OR escritores da periferia AND Ferréz 

Paulo Lins AND Cidade de Deus OR "city of god" OR favela

Cidade de Deus OR organized crime OR violência

"City of God" AND hip-hop OR rap OR Lil Wayne OR J. Cole OR Snoop Dogg OR "the game" OR AZ

Sacolinha OR Ademiro Alves de Sousa AND "Estação Terminal"

as teorias sociais AND literatura marginal AND pobres OR favelado

Marginality AND literature AND Bra*il