Due by the Final Day of the Semester (Or Anytime Before)

Annotated Bibliography

Due by the final day of the semester (or anytime before)

The annotated bibliography prepares us to use secondary sources effectively, opening up the possibility and practice of using scholarly research to inform 1) our discussions 2) our writing 3) our criticisms of the text.

Why not a paper? The importance of accurately reading and digesting critical scholarly discussions before we begin writing is a necessary skill that will be expected in higher level academia. The ability to inform ourselves before we make conjectures will open up our literary discussions to higher, more effective, and relevant levels. This is not a paper. This is a specific format for organizing, summarizing, and analyzing information about our literary pieces.

Assignment: choose a short story, poem, or drama and perform an annotated bibliography on that piece. Use secondary sources from SCF.edu to engage in critical and scholarly discussions of the primary source. Contribute with your own analysis to ongoing discussions. You may choose multiple stories, poems, or dramas, but they must be related, and your bibliographic analysis must focus on that relationship. See me for more information and to ensure your topic is appropriate.
Format (25pts): in MLA or APA, you will correctly, accurately, and professionally cite at least five secondary sources. After each citation, you will perform an annotated discussion consisting of multiple parts (explained below). This format is rigorous and specific and significant points will be taken from bibliographies that fail to follow it.

Content (50pts): annotations will consist of three parts 1) a summary of the entire source, or the relevant parts of the source 2) an analysis that evaluates the source, its ideas, information, objectivity, purpose, and goals 3) a reflection/contributing discussion answering the following questions: is the source important to research of the primary text? does the source make scholarly contributions to the primary source? How does the source change your perception/experience of the text?

If you choose to create a contributing discussion to the secondary source, engage its material critically and argue with the sources ideas.

Goal/purpose (50pts): the bibliography should have a clear purpose, meaning that your collection of secondary sources should come to some conclusion about the primary source. Your job is to make this obvious in the content section. For example, you believe the Yellow Wallpaper is a story about writing in women domestic environments; your collection of secondary sources should be relevant to that topic and you should come to a conclusion about how those sources inform you on that topic.
Grammar/genre/tone (25pts): the annotated bibliography should be written in 3rd person, formal English. The assignment should be free from grammatical errors, formatting errors, should be typed in 12pt font, times new roman, and focus on perfecting MLA or APA format. The tone of the assignment should not be judgmental or derogatory, but attempt to engage in a scholarly discussion of the primary source through secondary sources.

150 points, due at the beginning of the final day of the class, typed (for handwritten instructions see me). For more information, see: