Library Blog

books that speak to a female experience

In 2007, the literary magazine n+1 asked a group of writers to engage in a dialog about the formative books in their lives as young readers. The exercise returns this month with the pamphlet No Regrets, which recruited a cast of exclusively female participants to talk about the books they read (or didn’t) early on. “I knew that women speak to one another differently in rooms without men,” moderator Dayna Tortorici writes. “Not better, not more honestly, not more or less intelligently—just differently, and in a way one doesn’t see portrayed as often as one might like.” The result is a fascinating exploration of the development of female readers, from their disillusionment with manly canonical works, to their discovery of books that speak to a female experience, and toward a complicated understanding of how both sexist and feminist works have influenced their view of the world.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/12/09/in_no_regrets_women_writers_talk_about_what_it_was_like_to_read_literature.html

 

Google Scholar and Your Library

You may be aware that you are not going to find scholarly articles (what is a scholarly article?) by just searching Google alone, but many have discovered Google Scholar. So the question remains, what is Google Scholar, and is it any good?

Google Scholar is a search engine that searches for scholarly articles that are freely available online.  If, on the other hand, a journal is accessible only to paying subscribers, the full text of that article will not be available for free using Google Scholar. The abstract may be available (which is why it’s asking you to pay for it) but not the full text. In contrast, the Roosevelt University library pays for thousands of journal subscriptions (which you pay for with your tuition). You have free access to these articles only when you access and search these databases using the Roosevelt University library’s website. Many of the articles you find for a price on Google Scholar are available for free through the Roosevelt University library website! For more information about how Google Scholar works click here.


One feature Google Scholar has that could improve your searching is its ability to sync with our library. We have configured Google Scholar to pick up Roosevelt University's Library holdings, which will then allow you to read the full-text of articles that Google Scholar found which Roosevelt University subscribes to. A word of caution, though: Google Scholar is by no means searching all of RU's library's journal holdings, but rather allowing you a simplified way of accessing articles that RU owns that also come up in your Google Scholar list of search results. If you are on campus this will happen automatically. If you’re off campus, you must link to Google Scholar through the Roosevelt University Library web page (how to do this below**), you will be asked to enter your student-ID number, and this will enable you to see the full text of any articles to which we have purchased subscriptions. In the result list below, for example if you click on “Full-Text @ My Library”, you will be taken directly to the article or a page that lets you know if we have access to the article. If not you will be able to request the article via ILLiad, our interlibrary loan service.

NEW FEATURE! Now you have the ability to save the articles you find in Google Scholar to your Google account!! Details here: http://googlescholar.blogspot.com/2013/11/google-scholar-library.html

** To get to Google Scholar through the library website, start at the library homepage and look for Google Scholar under Online Resources A-Z

Everyday Genres: Writing Assignments across the Disciplines

 

In Everyday Genres: Writing Assignments across the Disciplines, Mary Soliday calls on genre theory- which proposes that writing cannot be separated from social situation-to analyze the common assignments given to writing students in the college classroom, and to investigate how new writers and expert readers respond to a variety of types of coursework in different fields. This in-depth study of writing pedagogy looks at many challenges facing both instructors and students in college composition classes, and offers a thorough and refreshing exploration of writing experience, ability, and rhetorical situation. 

Soliday provides an overview of the contemporary theory and research in Writing across the Curriculum programs, focusing specifically on the implementation of the Writing Fellows Program at the City College of New York. Drawing on her direct observations of colleagues and students at the school, she addresses the everyday challenges that novice writers face, such as developing an appropriate "stance" in one's writing, and the intricacies of choosing and developing content. 

The volume then goes on to address some of the most pressing questions being asked by teachers of composition: To what extent can writing be separated from its situation? How can rhetorical expertise be shared across fields? And to what degree is writing ability local rather than general? Soliday argues that, while writing is closely connected to situation, general rhetorical principles can still be capably applied if those situations are known. The key to improving writing instruction, she maintains, is to construct contexts that expose writers to the social actions that genres perform for readers. 

Supplementing the author's case study are six appendixes, complete with concrete examples and helpful teaching tools to establish effective classroom practices and exercises in Writing across the Curriculum programs. Packed with useful information and insight, Everyday Genres is an essential volume for both students and teachers seeking to expand their understanding of the nature of writing.