Exhibit 7.3, supplement to Chapter 7, “English Literature,” by Janelle M. Zauha, in Information Literacy Instruction That
Works, Second Edition, edited by Patrick Ragains. Chicago: Neal-Schuman, 2013.
Evaluating E-texts on the Web:
Some Tips for Lit Majors
As with print-format research materials, you need to know what you’re doing when you read
literature on the Web. Here are some pointers for critical evaluation of electronic texts of
e-texts accessible from the Web. Applying critical thinking to the information and editions you find will save
you embarrassment and help ensure high-quality work.
Evaluating primary literary resources in electronic format on the Web
E-texts, the online full-text versions of poetry, short stories, plays, novels, etc., are proliferating and they
can make certain kinds of literary research much easier. But just as with printed editions, there can be
different versions of an author’s work on the web, depending on how the text was digitized, the nature of
the original source, who digitized it, why it was digitized, whether or not copyright is still held, etc.
For instance, notice the difference between these two stanzas of a well-known Emily Dickinson poem, both of
which were found using a Google search for “Emily Dickinson” and poetry:
◊ Version A: (Found at www.bartleby.com/113/4128.html)
I HEARD a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
◊ Version B: (Found at www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15393)
I heard a Fly buzz–when I died–
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air–
Between the Heaves of Storm–
Both are from websites that appear legitimate, but they present very different versions of the same poem.
Unless you look carefully at each version and critically examine the sites they are embedded in, you may be
confused as to which is the best to use for your research, whether for a short quotation or extensive
textual examination.
Go to the original site for each of the versions above and consider the following questions:
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Who is the publisher/producer of the website where the text appears?
What copyright information are you given on the website itself?
What copyright information is provided for Dickinson’s poem?
How will you determine which version is better for your purposes?
What else might you need to find out about editions of Dickinson’s poetry to make this judgment?
Where will you find that information?
For more about e-texts
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2
Some Categories of E-texts
Reading Copies
Some E-texts exist simply to increase public access. Often literary texts whose copyright
have expired are scanned, rekeyed, or otherwise converted to computer files. The producers
of these e-texts are not concerned with text encoding standards, errors, or the condition of
the edition/text in terms of completeness or authority. While these texts are freely
accessible and can be useful for locating phrases, plot, and so forth, they are not used for
serious scholarship.
Example: Project Gutenberg <www.gutenberg.org/>
Authoritative Texts
Other e-text producers are focused on providing access to research-appropriate,
authoritative texts or experimental literature. They set and follow standards for text coding
and pay attention to issues of quality and authority. Many collections contain both free and
restricted texts. Texts in these collections are appropriate for scholarly use. In addition to
text resources, these collections often also contain born-digital electronic literature and/or
“digital projects,” collaborative combinations of texts, data, images, sound, and other
information to form new meaning.
Example: Scholar’s Lab (University of Virginia) <www2.lib.virginia.edu/scholarslab>
Teaching Texts
Another type of e-text is the “teaching text”—one that includes additional materials or
links to enhance or control the reader’s experience of the text. These e-texts are not just
appropriate for a particular level of learning or type of literature. Virtually any text can be
enhanced online when the medium of the web is fully exploited. These might also be known
as creative e-texts because they often explore multimedia possibilities, ultimately changing
the original text into a completely different experience for the reader.
Example: The Sound and the Fury: A Hypertext Edition
<http://drc.usask.ca/projects/faulkner/>
Find Out More
Browner, Stephanie, Stephen Pulsford, and Richard Sears. Literature and the Internet: A Guide for
Students, Teachers, and Scholars. New York: Garland, 2000.
Earhart, Amy E. and Andrew Jewell, eds. The American Literature Scholar in the Digital Age. Ann Arbor: The
University of Michigan Press, 2011.
Simanowski, Roberto, Jorgen Schafer, and Peter Gendola, eds. Reading Moving Letters: Digital Literature in
Research and Teaching: A Handbook. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2010.
jmz fall 2011