Bibliography

Due Oct 1

Annotated Scholarly Bibliography

Collaborative by topic group, due midnight, Monday evening

An introduction to scholarly trends and a resource for future scholarship.

  1. Sources
    • Number required: 7 for singles, 10 for groups of 2, 12 for groups of 3, 14 for groups of 4.
    • Sources should meet quality standards of college-level research: no encyclopedia articles; no “informative” websites. Articles in book collections count individually—but don’t include more than 2 or 3 articles from any given collection.
    • List sources using Chicago style Bibliographical citations (NOT the Chicago Footnote style: see the St. Martin’s Handbook, chapter 18)
    • If you include any primary sources, they should generally NOT be listed individually, but instead by resource group—a book or authoritative website that offers access to a lot of valuable “fragments from the past.” Some books in the college library are collections of news articles relevant for a certain topic—a book like that would be a valid entry in your bibliography.
  2. Annotations: 100-200 words (3-7 sentences), phrased to present the source author as the main character of the annotation. Your annotation should answer some or all of the following:
    • What is the author trying to do?
      • What topic does the source address?
      • What prior understanding does it take as starting point?
      • What new understanding does it argue as thesis?
      • What kind(s) of evidence does the author reference?
    • Why is it useful?
      • What kinds of material does it offer? statistics? anecdotes? cool ideas?
      • Note: If you don’t think a source is useful in some way, it doesn’t belong in your bibliography. This is a list of sources that you are recommending for one reason or another, not a list of all the sources you came across in the course of doing research.
    • How is it different/the same as other sources in your list?
      • Consider differences of method, of opinion, etc.
      • Make note if one source gets referenced as an authority by other sources, even if those others disagree with it: that’s a sign of respect, of a source worth disagreeing with.
  3. Turning in your Annotated Bibliography
    • as a Word file (.doc or .docx) or as a PDF (.pdf)
    • Name the file using your topic name + ‘Bib’ followed by the appropriate extension (.doc, .docx, or .pdf).
    • Go to the appropriate section of the Research Findings area. Find the comment where you earlier posted your Written Report. Make a Comment in reply to your earlier comment, adding your Annotated Bibliography as a File Upload.

Comments are closed.