DRAMA 302 Critical Analysis of Theatre

The course description for Drama 302 states: "Analyses of plays, based on leading critical traditions. Illustrates variety of approaches to a play, criteria for choosing best approach for a given play, and ways in which criticism aids in understanding dramatic effect, for both reader and practitioner. Offered: AWSp." 5 hours credit meets writing course requipement.

Definition of criticism:

3: the art of evaluating or analyzing with knowledge and propriety works of art or literature
<the first principle of criticism, which is, to consider the nature of the piece, and the intent of its author

4: the scientific investigation of literary documents in regard to such matters as origin, text,
composition, character, or history
(Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged p. 538)

Schools of criticism examined by the class:

Search Strategies:

When searching online remember the following options:

• many databases have a truncation, which allows for spelling irregularities
  
  
• If you aren't sure whether to use feminist or feminism in our online catalog, use feminis*
  
  
• Your results will differ depending on whether you are searching by subject or keyword.
  • subject searching implies you are using specific terms recognized
  • keyword searching is more flexible. Your terms may come from a variety of areas, e.g. author, title, subject, the abstract. You may combine words from any of the above areas.
    
    
• For suggestions on Searching Online using the libraries' online catalog as you look for books or magazines the library system owns.

  
  Below are some comparisons on subject or keyword searching. Please look at the searches, their results, and some of the comments on how you could refine your searching.

  
  
  

	Comments & results
Subject Search: Feminist Criticism	offers broad information on twenty-five subjects and 4 related subjects outside of subject of drama
Keyword Search feminis* criticism	* is a truncation, which picks up alternate spelling, e.g., feminism, feminist looks for the two words as a phrase and finds over 260 items consider limiting this search to the Drama Library. This implies your focus is on theatre rather than the broader area of literature.
Keyword Search feminis* and criticism	looks for words in any combination of fields results over 1,500 items limit this to the Drama Library and you narrow your search to sixty titles
Keyword Search: feminis* and critic* and Drama Library location	simular search as above but looks for alternate spellings of feminist, feminism, feministic and searches for critic, critical, criticics and criticism limits the search to the Drama Library
Subject Search: feminist theater	note now librarians spell theatre; when you do a subject search you need to use their spelling
Keyword Search: femin* theat*	this search looks for variant spellings of feminist as well as theatre limit the search further to Drama Library location

 

Good research strategy includes using common sense.

• Remember a word may be used by a variety of researchers.
  • If you are focusing on Marxist, Postcolonial, or Psychoanalytic criticism these terms are also used by people in political science and history.
  • You may get many "false hits", which use the word but aren't dealing with dramatic criticism
  • Find ways to indicate you want Marxist Criticism or you are combining Marxism with drama or theatre.
  • If you are in a general database you need to identify you want Marxist Criticism, but if you are in a literary database that will be understood.
    
    
• If you are in a literary database, you have less "false hits", i.e., the term is found but irrelevant.
  
  
• For general information on Researching Your Playwright:
• Databases
  

Marxist criticism	A Subject search in the online catalog finds over 100 items in the library system	Current Contents search (R) 7 editions general interest
		Expanded academic index, 1,500 scholarly and general interest periodicals
		MLA international bibliography, 1963 - over 3,000 journals, working papers, etc.
		Research library complete, 1986 - newspapers and periodicals
		ISI Web of science databases, includes Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI), 1975-

Last Updated 3/19/04 contact the Drama Library drama@lib.washington.edu

© 2002 Liz Fugate

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