Rusq vol. 9, no. (Winter 2019)

MLA Guide to Undergraduate Research in Literature.
By Elizabeth Brookbank and H. Faye Christenberry. New 
York: Modern Language Association of America, 2019. 137 
p. $16 (ISBN: 9781603294362). 
Though the Modern Language Association (MLA) is most 
known for their style guides, the 
MLA Guide to Undergraduate 
Research in Literature
is part of a small collection of pedagogi-
cal treatises the MLA offers for literature and composition 
instructors, offering entry points to various foundations of 
most English coursework.
They state that this guide is meant for undergradu-
ate researchers or instructors, but it would be weak as an 
assigned reading for undergraduates. Its best use is for 
English teachers hoping for guidance on teaching literary 
research papers and especially instructional librarians who 
work in library or composition classrooms. Because the book 
describes the research process in similar ways to how it is 
often imagined in library information literacy discourse—
with notions like brain storming and keywords, changing 
research questions, citation management, and conduct-
ing Internet searching—it works well as a foundation for 
research instruction curriculum.
Though it contains similar concepts to information lit-
eracy discourse, it differs from something like the ALA’s 
popular cookbook series and similar guides,
1
which offer 
activity ideas for undergraduate library instruction in gen-
eral, normally reducing humanities to a singular tradition. 
The 
MLA Guide to Undergraduate Research in Literature
dives 
deeply into all facets of literary research exclusively, promot-
ing subject-specific databases outside of the MLA’s own MLA 
International Bibliography. Importantly, it tackles particular 
problems posed in literary research, such as how to research 
a piece of literature that has not been written about in schol-
arship or how to conduct advanced literary searches using 
logic specific to literary criticism, such as theme. It focuses 
less on activities and more on concepts, though it does 
include examples and prompts for the classroom.
It is wise to include this book as the foundation of library 
instruction for the English classroom, following the chronol-
ogy it offers for literary research and some of its discussions of 
things like describing 
contextual primary sources
. Rather than 
basing instruction ideas purely on information literacy guides 
coming from library publishers, this book speaks to the 
English community’s needs, as written by the English com-
munity itself.—
 Elliott Kuecker, Instructional Librarian / Liaison 
for First-Year Composition, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia
Reference
1. K. Calkins and C. Kvenild, 
The Embedded Librarian’s Cookboo. 
(Chicago: American Library Association, 2014); N. Fawley and 

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