NAME OF LIBRARIAN:
Jennifer Yao Weinraub
Prior to the consult, I was confused about what to ask the librarian because I was still unsure about what to write exactly.
I am very interested in writing about the film director Ang Lee. Since I initially intended to write something like a biography, it was difficult for me to come up with an argument and a thesis statement. As a consequence my first thesis was too broad and abstract.
Therefore I decided to pose that as my question for the librarian.
Jennifer not only demonstrated carefully for me many ways to access different resources, but in the mean time also explored new directions to narrow down my topic.
She first taught me how to search efficiently. For instance, when searching for Ang Lee, adding quotation marks would ensure that the result is only about Ang Lee. Other books with Ang or Lee, like Bruce Lee will not show up. In addition, adding a ‘*’ mark behind words like ‘global’ would give you resources with names like ‘globalism’, ‘globalization’ .etc.
As we were looking through the resources, we saw many controversial articles about some specific films of Ang Lee. Jennifer then suggested me to write about certain arguments raised from one or some of his films. In that way, it would be a lot more easier when it comes to writing a thesis statement. She also suggested me to read through some of those articles first in order to find out which film of Ang Lee suits me the most.
In conclusion, it was a very helpful experience. Especially when Jennifer knows Ang Lee and loves his films!
In the end, I decided to focus on Ang Lee’s newest film – Billy Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk and how it speaks for the young soldiers in the United States.
