Biographical Sketch on Samuel Coleridge

Biographical Sketch on Samuel Coleridge

DescriptionAuthor name Samuel Taylor Coleridge

For this project, you will choose an author whose works we are reading this semester.
Your author will be unique to you; no two of you will research the same author. You
will write a short biography of your author (described on this handout), and also use
your research to give context for that author’s work in class on the day on which that
reading is assigned (this contribution will count as a foundational/class participation
activity).
RESEARCH
You will find biographical details about your author from a minimum of four sources.
1. One is your choice but may be your Norton; if the Norton does not include
biographical details on your author, you may use a reliable website or scholarly
source of your choice. This source must have a named author.
2. A second source should be from a reliable database linked through the university
library website (such as the Literature Resource Center, Bloom’s Literature, Gale
Biography in Context, or Scribner or Twayne’s Writers Online).
3. If your author died before 2000 [bold on my list], your third source must be from
a printed book: a work by that author that includes a biographical section, an
actual printed biography of that author, a printed encyclopedia, etc. Use the
library resources at NOVA! The Fairfax County Library also has some excellent
printed texts. Consider planning ahead to request a book on inter-library loan.
3a. If your author died after 2000 or is still alive, the third source may
either be a printed book (as above) or may be an obituary, interview, or
other newspaper or magazine article about that author. (Some
interviews are available on the Literature Resource Center; obituaries
are best accessed through ProQuest or newspapers’ own web sites).
4. One essay should be a scholarly essay from a peer-reviewed journal or book of
scholarly essays that analyzes the author’s work (one text or several).
WRITING & CITING
Use the information found from your sources to write a short biography of your author
in your own words. Do not copy and paste information from your sources verbatim.
Make a list of essential events and facts in the author’s life, and then describe these
(using complete sentences) in your own words.
Each and every fact you present should include a parenthetical citation to the source
from which you learned it. You should have at least one citation per sentence. All four
sources should be listed in a works cited page at the end of the essay.
Use section headers to divide your biography into relevant sections (such as Childhood,
Education, Early Writing, Later Work, Influences, etc., but you may use whatever terms
seem most relevant). You should have at least three sections, and each should have
about a paragraph of text. Short sections should be conflated so that you do not have
any sections with fewer than two sentences (e.g. you could have Childhood and
Education together).