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ESOL 140: Expository Writing for English Speakers of the Other Languages

A guide for ESOL 140 students on researching and writing about music

Where to Look for Information on Recent Creators

Below are some examples of resources you can find openly available online!

  • Wikipedia is a great place to start! While you cannot cite Wikipedia, this will give you good ideas of places to start your research journey. You can also look at their references and footnotes to find research on your creator. 
  • Look for their personal websites. A lot of recent composers, conductors, and more have their own websites, complete with an "About" or "Bio(graphy)" page. Feel free to use this to gather information but be mindful of bias and try to verify any facts. 
  • Is your musician/composer/band in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame? Their Inductees website includes essays on these rockers written by experts. 
  • See if they have any interviews on YouTube, a podcast episode, or within a blog - particularly if those interviews were given by an expert. 

Many music magazines and newspapers (hint: check the "Culture" section!) publish reviews of new recordings and live concerts, and some of these reviews contain quotes from the creator and biographic information. Additionally, magazines like Rolling Stone and newspapers like the New York Times often interview upcoming artists. If you can't find articles like this using Search.Libraries, remember to look through newspaper databases, too! The following guides may be helpful as you look through Oberlin's newspapers.

Magazine & Newspaper Databases

Bibliographies, Biographies, and Related Items

Theses & Dissertations

While not peer-reviewed, these types of sources are accepted by many professors. These are more likely to discuss more recent creators, and they often have great bibliographies to look through for even more sources! Beyond Google Scholar, here are a few more places to look:

How to Search for Recent Creators

General

Try searching for the creator's name and the type of source you're trying to find. For example:

  • [Name] interview
  • [Name] review
  • [Name] press release

Remember to Zoom In/Out!

Particularly with newer creators, you might not be able to find a lot of sources that are specifically about the piece you're interested in. If searching for a creator and the title of the piece/album/song isn't working, zoom out and try the above method. If you're getting too many results from the above method, zoom in and add more details, like an album title, genre, and so on.

Search by Genre, Location, or Style

As part of zooming out, sometimes you can find academic sources that at least indirectly mention your artist by searching for artistic movements, genres, or geographic locations ("scenes") that they belong to. For example, if I was having trouble finding scholarly information on Rosé from Blackpink, I could instead look for academic work written on K-pop, international crossover artists, and so on.

Important Considerations for Research

Possible Bias

A lot of the resources mentioned on this page might be written by the creator and/or their team OR are trying to sell you something (magazine subscription, CD/digital file, etc.), so it's important to consider how this resource might be biased when you're using it for your paper. Think about:

  • Who wrote this resource and why?
  • What information is left out? What information is heavily focused on?
  • Is this information found elsewhere or do your sources disagree?

Difficulty Finding "Scholarly" Items

Most research papers ask for peer-reviewed books and articles which isn't always possible with more recent creators. Always check with your professor on what sources they will accept! Often, as long as you acknowledge some sources aren't "scholarly" and complement those with academic sources (like journal articles), you can make it work.