Vampire Myths and Folklore

My research topic was about the different myths and folktales about vampires that differed among countries and cultures.

The topic was pretty interesting and I enjoyed writing the paper. I feel that it was definitely easier than the other essays, and I had a lot of fun writing it. A piece of advice that I have to offer is to definitely not be lazy and DO NOT procrastinate. It may seem like there's a lot of time to write the paper, but those weeks go by pretty fast, and the information needed to answer the question isn't always so easy to find. With that said, I would also recommend paying a visit to the library to see what it has to offer. If you do not find anything on the online databases, it doesn't mean that the library itself wont have anything. I couldn't find all the information on the Internet or through the databases (at first, when I wasn't searching properly), so I actually went into the library and came out with plenty of books with the right info.
The biggest lesson that I learned from writing this paper was that it wasn't really hard in the first place, and things tend to go a lot smoother if you just do the work... even when you don't want to.

African Folklore and American Entertainment

At this point, I'm sure many of my classmates have already made abundantly clear the importance of starting early and doing so would be something of a cliche. But, allow me a cliche'd moment because it can't be stressed enough.

Whatever you choose to write about, START EARLY!

Another important piece of advice is to choose a topic of interest, otherwise writing this I-search paper will be a gigantic chore. That being said, I chose to write about the influence of African folklore on American entertainment today because I tap dance. My teacher would read excerpts from a book on tap history and that's where I started my research. The most useful books I found are the following:

Tap Roots: The Early History of Tap Dancing by Mark Knowles

Rockin' in Time: A Social History of Rock-and-Roll by David P. Szatmary

The Healing Drum by Yaya Diallo and Mitchell Hall

Waltzing in the Dark by Brenda Dixon Gottschild

African Folkore: An Encyclopedia (available at the Kennedy Library in the reference section)

My research question was: "In what ways have African folklore traditions persisted in American entertainment?” The resources listed above along with observations of modern American entertainment helped answer my research question, but I feel there is still much to be found.

Good luck on your papers! And start soon/now!

Fairy Tales and Children

I obviously would start off by saying, start your research paper when the professor tells you too! Be sure that all the sources you use are reliable and that they provide the right information for your researched paper.

My research question is What are the psychological affects that fairy tales have on children?. I would recommend Jack Zipes for anything fairy tale ; he explores many different aspects and roles that fairy tales play in society (not just psychological).

Sources

Zipes, J. Happily ever after: Fairy tales, children, and the culture industry.

Zipes, J. Fairy tales and the are of subversion.

Zipes, J. Relentless Progress : The Reconfiguration of Children's Literature, Fairy Tales, and Storytelling

Japanese-American Folklore

The best advice for anyone who wants to research Japanese-American folklore: be prepared to look at sources that are not printed. Books and journal articles are surprisingly devoid of information regarding Japanese-American folklore. If I'm not mistaken, the best sources for this topic are probably interviews or cultural center archives. If that sounds like something you're willing to do, then plan in advance to speak to someone or make an appointment to browse archives at the Japanese American National Museum or the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (both in Los Angeles) or somewhere similar. If you want to keep your research confined to the library (and no one would blame you if you did), then your best bet would be to choose another topic.

Of the sources I managed to find, the best two were both journal articles. Fumi Kawamoto's "Folk Beliefs among Japanese in the Los Angeles Area" and Marvin Opler's "Japanese Folk Beliefs and Practices, Tule Lake, California" were helpful, and both can be found through the JSTOR search engine on the CSULA library website. Best of luck!

Wonder Woman

1. First of all, I'm surprised no one else has mentioned this but you should probably start on your paper early. I'm kidding of course. That piece of advice will be a common theme in this blog and you'll most likely hear about it in class too but just because it's cliche it doesn't mean you shouldn't follow it. So get on it! Second of all, you should pick a subject that interests you. You'll be torturing yourself if you have to spend weeks on a project that bores you.

2. I chose Wonder Woman as the topic for my paper. More specifically I wanted to find out if she truly was a feminist character or if her kicking butt ways were just a superficial mask that covered up a more stereotypical female character. The research process for this paper was far more in depth and interesting than I expected it making the writing of this paper an enjoyable process.

If you are to choose Wonder Woman as a topic (or any other female heroine) the following sources are essential to your research:

Madrid, Mike. The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines. [Ashland, Or.]: Exterminating Angel, 2009. Print.

Robinson, Lillian S. Wonder Women Feminisms and Superheroes. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.

obedience in fairy tales

when doing research, my advice is to collect information in as much references as possible about your topic as it helps lengthen your paper. find and use more than the minimum amount of references.

get an early start on the research and reading the information. writing the paper gets easier when you know what to talk about and which references to cite. for those who work best under pressure, getting an early start on the research wouldn't be so bad.

An Atypical Fairy Tale: Wall-E

1. Reflection:

I will recommend the future students should start the paper earlier, especially you are doing the topic that has very less sources. This researched paper is not about organizing the useful information and then put it on the your researched paper. This paper focuses on analyzing the sources that we read, and we need to think critically that how the topic related to our life. So, it is good to start your research early!

My research question is if people think Wall-E deserves to get a Best Picture in Oscar Awards, should Wall-E still be categorized as a fairy tale? If Wall-E can be categorized as a fairy tale, is it a modern fairy tale? And what is the difference and similarity between the two?

2. Sources:

Here are some useful sources:

• "The Interpretation of Fairy Tales" by Marie-Louise Von Franz
• “The Thematic Core of Fairy Tales” by Steven Jones
• “Disenchantments: An Anthology of Modern Fairy Tale Poetry” by Wolfgang Mieder
  
  
  I can find all of these books in CSULA's library.

The clippers curse

I did my research paper on sports curses

My advice is to start researching early. I found that I didn't have enough time to say everything I wanted. It's a very fun assignment and enjoyed doing the research, but I wish I started earlier or had more time. Do something your interested in and have fun with it!

My topic was sports curses and I honed in on the Clippers curse

Some helpful sources I found

The Wages of Wins: taking measure of the Many Myths in Sport. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006.Berri, David J., Martin B. Schmidt and Stacey L. Brook.

Anything written by Joseph Campbell I found very interesting

Baseball and Superstitions

Baseball Superstitions

I’m a huge sports fan and an even bigger baseball fan. This is probably my favorite assignment ever because I got to choose something that I liked as a topic. So for anyone, choose a topic you really like and can get into. It makes the burden of getting the assignment done, well not a burden. This is a different assignment because not many professors like to hear or let their students use first person point of view.
For anyone choosing this topic there are many books and websites that show what superstitions there are.

I recommend:

Books

Jinxed: Baseball Superstitions from around the League by Ken Leiker
Don't Step on the Foul Line: Sports Superstition. By George Sullivan
The Incomplete Book of Baseball Superstitions, Rituals, and Oddities. By Mike Blake

Another good source is
“Baseball Magic” by George Gmelch.

If you want to go deeper into why players are superstitious, I’d check out more psychologist essays and thoughts on people and superstitions. Those can be very helpful.

Disney Films Affect on Children

This research paper is not your typical research paper, you have to write it in a first person point of view, which makes it more original and unique.
Helpful Advice!!!

One piece of advice about the researched paper is to start early and NOT procrastinate on writing your research paper!!!!!



I suggest that when you start researching your topic you first look for books and then start looking online for information.



Another tip about looking for the research information is to use different online data bases not just one.

Ex: CSULA library database, google scholar, wikipedia sources (evaluate them first to see if they are useful)



My topic: Disney films and Children



Research Question: How do Disney films affect children psychologically?



Sources Used:

---- Most Useful Sources

Giroux, H.A. (2004). Are Disney Movies Good For your Kids?. In S. R. Steinberg & J. L. Kincheloe (Eds.), Kinder Culture: The Coorporate Construction of Childhood. (2nd ed.). (pp. 164-176). U.S. Westview Press.

Zipes J. (1997). Hapily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children, and the Culture Industry. New York. Routledge.

Tamer, L.R., Haddock S. A., Schindler, T., & Lund L. K. (2003). Images of couples and families in Disney feature-length animated films. The American Journal of Family Therapy, (31), 355-373.

Hope this is helpful!!! :) Good luck

Disney Racism

My advice to English 102 students that are going to write a research paper is to start once you receive your assignment. When you start early you can find many sources and they may lead you to additional sources. Make sure you narrow down your research topic because you will be able to focus on a specific topic. Students should choose a topic that they are interested in because if you choose a topic that is boring you will procrastinate on your research paper. If you are having trouble with finding sources, you should go see a P.A.I.R tutor in the writing center. The tutors will help you find sources on your topic.

My research topic was Disney's Racism. I wanted to find out "How has Disney's portrayal of race changed?” My topic was a fun topic to research because there were many sources that had different opinions regarding the issue. I first started with google see how many articles I could find in news papers and magazines than youtube for EDUCATION videos. After finding out what exactly issues could be pointed out in my research I went to University’s library and looked up for articles and books regarding those keywords. For example one of those keywords is “song of the south”.

With that strategy I found plenty information in few books, articles and even few videos. Also one of main helps in your research is your professor. You can ask the professor to guide you to the right direction in your research or help you to find resources about your topic.

These are a list of useful sources: Sun, Chyng, Prod. Mickey Mouse monopoly Media Education Foundation. Dir. Miguel Picker." Northampton, MA: 2002, DVD. Lester, Neal A. "Disney's the Princess and the Frog: The Pride, the Pressure, and the Politics of being a First." Journal of American Culture 33.4 (2010): 294-308. Web. Gabler, Neal. Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. Knopf Doubleday, 2007. eBook. Brode, Douglas. Multiculturalism and the Mouse: Race and Sex in Disney Entertainment . 1st ed. Austin, TX: 2005. Print.

Disney Mulan

Reflection

Phong: I would have definitely started on the research portion a lot earlier than I had. It's also a good idea to ask people who are doing similar topics for some of the sources they're using so you have a bigger knowledge base on your topic.

Jeffrey: I say.. start working on the research paper really early, especially not wait until the finals week... because there could be other classes that needs to be stress about. the research paper is not as difficult as the other essay, but it require a good amount of writing, its not something can be done overnight.

Research

Phong: The sources that I found the most useful were just websites I found using search engines like Google or Yahoo. The database articles, which I thought were going to help out a lot, I didn't find to be very useful.

Jeffrey: our topic is Mulan, we wants to know the difference between the Disney version and the "ballad of mulan"

and try to find out why is mulan popular.

Here are some useful sources:

http://www.chinapage.com/mulan.html

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art29756.asp

http://scholar.google.com/ <-- search bar type in " Mulan: Disney's hybrid heroine "

Disability in Fairy Tales

1. Reflection: The researched paper in this class is a different kind of writing experience because you get to write in the 'I' voice and do not have to write in the boring, impersonal, and detached style normally associated with research papers. Your opinions, thoughts, and reactions (plus life experiences!) can be intermingled with the information you find so it is much more fun than you'd expect from writing this type of paper. (Yes, I said "fun".)

Select a topic that really interests you and is something you want to learn more about. Use the library databases. Start your writing process as soon as possible so you're not writing two papers at the same time since the other assignments will continue. Also, carefully read the directions for the paper. (I didn't and missed the part about the paper being in four parts. I had to somewhat redo my paper once my error became apparent at a peer review.) Professor Hicks is quite thorough in explaining what is required so you know what is expected and there are no surprises.

2. Research: My research topic was how disability is portrayed in fairy tales. There wasn't too much relating both topics but I did find more about disability and folk tales. (Having the right search terms that yield the best results is part of the process and it can be difficult.) Also, consider which discipline would study your topic and then look through their databases.

Initially I used Project Muse. I considered my topic and searched through the databases of language and literature since I thought fairy tales would be a part of literature. JSTOR worked well and I did find both books and journals. (I also gained a new appreciation for abstracts. They're concise and informative!) One of the most helpful books for me was Kathy Saunders' Happy Ever Afters because it was printed in 2000 and had newer information and terms which I found helpful. Another book I recommend is John Quicke's Disability in Modern Children's Fiction. It was a bit older (1985) but still covered points not made in Saunders book.

Definitely the best journal article on my topic is "Fairies and the Folklore of Disability; Changelings, Hybrids and the Solitary Fairy" by Susan Schoon Eberly, published in Folklore journal. I found that by looking under language and literature once I realized folklore would provide more leads for my topic.

End of the World

Some advice i have for future 102 students:

• choose a topic that you are interested in, this way you will not get bored and you will actually want to do the research.


• start on your research early, or don't wait until the last week to start.


• try to come up with as many key terms and phrases relating to your topic as possible before starting your search, and don't stress too much if you cannot come up with a lot because you can run into more terms and phrases as you do your research.


• Get your library sources as soon as possible because other people in the class might have a similar topic to you and they could take all the good ones.


• On the CSULA library database for articles, JSTOR and Project Muse are great databases to use for sources.


• When looking for book sources, read the table of content, the intro/summary and the index first. This saves time.

The topic of my research is end of the world myths. My research question is, why do people believe these "end of the world" myths even though many end of the world events, like the Y2K incident, were disproven and how do these myths serve society?

Some helpful sources for this topic:

• "Millennial Seduction" by Lee Quinby


• "Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem" Edited by Thomas Robbins and Susan J. Palmer
  

*both sources can be found in the CSULA JFK Memorial library.

Violence in Fairy Tales

The biggest advice I have for everyone is to start early. I know you will probably hear it from everyone else in the class. We all have pulled a good grade on an essay we wrote the night before, but that is not something you can do with this paper. The amount of time it took me to find my sources was much longer than I expected. I went into the paper thinking that I can just type "violence in fairy tales" in Google and hundreds of answers will be right in front of me. Of course I got nothing but pages of sites that sell essays on fairy tales. The first way you should try to get sources is by using the library databases of JSTOR and Project Muse. I would also recommend, depending on your topic to try other databases besides English, I myself used the psychology category database as well. I also received a lot of help from my peer review group. (Thank You Guys!!) I got the advice to read the articles and books in the works cited of the few journals I already had. This was very helpful and allowed me to gather the rest of the sources I needed. I was also in the peer review group which was the one with no one having a similar topic. So if you are lucky enough to get into a peer review group with similar topics, don't think of it as an easy day for 10 points, but try to get as much information as you can and share sources.

The topic of my research paper was violence in fairy tales and I wanted to answer the question why is society entertained by the violent element in them and is it really a bad thing if we are? The sources I found useful were:

* "The Witch Must Die: The Hidden Meaning of Fairy Tales" by Sheldon Cashdan (library)

* "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales" Bruno Bettelheim (library)

* "Violence and Fear in Folktales" by David Boudinot (JSTOR)

*"Off with their Heads!: Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood" by Maria Tatar (library)

As you can see the most useful sources are books from the library.

In conclusion:

Start Early + Actually Spend Time On Your Topic Decision + Use Sources From The Library = Party One Week Earlier Than Everyone Else In Class

Myth America Blog Post

1. The researched paper is not your typical research paper. Instead of the norm third person narrative you must write your paper in first person. This is because you have to give specific ideas about what you researched, why they matter to you, and why they would matter to anybody reading it. Knowing what I know now, I would have needed to find more scholarly sources like journal articles. I would go to the P.A.I.R tutors at the writing center for help early on. I went to them after I had most of my research finished and they are very helpful. They focus on helping you do research, cite sources, and do your works cited page in the format which has been asked of you. I truly recommend all of you to go see them. Another thing I would have done, is I would have made an appointment at the writing center before hand. Sadly, I did not make an appointment for this project, so instead when I went I would have to wait an average of three hours to get help from the tutors there. Seeing how I went multiple times, I spend a lot of time waiting because towards the end of the quarter the writing center is packed and appoints are filled.

2. My research topic is Vampires. More specifically my research question is how vampires have evolved.

These are my most useful sources:

Karg, Barb, Arjean Spaite and Rick Sutherland. The Everything Vampire Book. Avon: Adams Media, 2009. Print.

This books is very useful if your research topic or question deals with vampires. I recommend everyone researching vampires to take a look at this book because it is basically gold. This book has everything. It discusses vampire history, vampires in literature, vampires in film and legend. In fact this book discusses Dracula, and even the twenty first century vampire shows and fascinations like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight, and True Blood. GET THIS BOOK!

Konstantinos. Vampires: The Occult Truth. St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications, 1996. Print.

This book is very useful as well. Essentially this book discusses vampires the belief of vampires around the world, characteristics of vampires, it helps in seperating vampires from fiction and nonfiction. It also deals with different perceptions and portrayals of vampires.

Bartlett, Wayne, and Flavia Idriceanu. Legends of Blood. West Port: Praeger Publishers, 2006. Print.

This book is very useful as well. It mainly deals and discusses about why vampires have been and continue to be so appealing to us. It also helps by discussing useful connections and reasons as to why vampires are intriguing to us.

Cooper, Basil. The Vampire in Legend, Fact, and Art. Secaucus: Citadel Press, 1973. Print.

This book is very useful as well. It's main focus is about vampire legends facts and art. It also discusses the physical appearances of vampires. It has some things about Dracula . There is also some stuff on vampire literature and film.

I hope this helped!

Social values

Hello fellow 102 English students. If you are on this blog, you are most likely going to be in the process of writing your research paper. Some key pointers for you to succeed is to grab your sources as quickly as possible from the library, don't procrastinate, and if you got the time venture out to other public libraries and don't limit yourself to the csula library. Remember a research paper is something that you want to learn. Do not pick a topic that you are interested in;instead, pick a topic you will enjoy researching since you will spend a lot of time finding sources that back up your question you are trying to answer.

Me and my partner Angelica decided to do a collaborative paper. We wanted to find out the relationship between fairy tale stories targeted toward children and their influence on our individual development into maturity and establishment of social values. Some key books that proved useful in answering our question were

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy
Tales. 1st. United States, New York: Random House, Inc, 1976. Print.

Franz, Marie-Louise. An Introduction to the Psychology of Fairy Tales. 2nd. Zurich,Switzerland: Spring, 1973. Print.

Zipes, Jack. Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories Folk and Fairy Tales. 1st. Great Britian, Europe: University of Texas Press Austin, 1980. Print.

superstition

1) some advice I would give about this research paper would be to first pick a topic that you are actually/ a least some what interested in. And if its very general/broad try to narrow it down. i started out leaving my topic a little too general and it was hard to find a starting point. knowing what i know now I would've started sooner

2)my topic was superstition and i wanted to ask why we do believe them. one of the sources i used was a book called 'the psychology of superstition' by Gustav Jahoda. i also looked up superstitions online and found out some history. i just used google and tried typing in things/questions i wanted to know (ex: theatre superstitions, saying Macbeth, common/known superstitions) and decide which of the sites that come up would work best w/ your topic

Research topic: Mulan

Jennifer Cheng
Yang Sun
Cheng-Lung Kuo
Collaborative Research Paper
It is very important to choose the topic that interested you the most, which would keep you going much smoother. I chose "Mulan", because I studied about her story when I was in high school. Moreover, I wanted to know if she is a feminist or not.
When finding sources, I first tried to search words like "Mulan and Feminist" online, but I couldn't not find any related information that seemed helpful. Then, I went to CSULA's library database, such as "J Stor", "Project Muse". And I found about three journal articles that gave me a lots of ideas about Mulan and her contributions to feudal China.
There are several questions we wanted to know. Does Mulan promote feminism? How is she influencing Chinese women? We also wanted to know the relationship between her story and chinese cultrue. We found some useful sources in our library's database. To begin the search, simply go to our library's website, and click on "article", then choose databases. We found two of them especially helpful: "Project Muse" and "Jstor". Below are the results that related to our topic, and really helped us to do our paper:
Altenburger, R (2005). Is It Clothes that Make the Mulan? Cross-Dressing, Gender, and Sex in Pre-Twentieth-Century Zhu Yingtai Lore. (Vol.64 no.2). Asian Folkore Studies. 165-205
Lan, F (2003). The Female Individual and Empire: A Historicist Approach to Mulan and Kingston's Woman Warrior. Comparative literature, 229-245.
Mann, Susan. (2000). Presidential Address: Myths of Asian Womanhood. the Journal of Asian studies, 835-862

Welcome

This is the new blog for English 102 (taught by Jennifer Hicks) at California State University Los Angeles. If you are my student, you made it here! The goal of the blog is for students to share their advice about the researched paper and to create an online resource of useful sources. To this end, students in my classes will post their advice and resources as part of completing their researched paper. If anyone else is reading this, it should provide advice about writing research papers and a variety of resources for papers with some connection to myth, folklore, and fairy tales.