Annotated Bibliography

Placed about two thirds of the way through the term, this assignment gives you space to pause, gather your own and other scholars' thoughts about the work we have done, and look ahead to the end of the semester.

Along with the rest of your assigment, you will submit a submission sheet that helps you and me see clearly that you have completed it fully. Here is a template for the submission sheet; open it, save your own version, fill it out, and submit it with your assignment.

The standard version of the assignment is a process essay relating your research into your leading idea for the final paper or performance. In an essay of at least 1000 words, quoting and citing at least five secondary or contextual sources, explain your exploratory research process so far. Remember that the most valuable sources will generally be relatively recent (post-1990, give or take) and will come from using the library's databases and collections.

As you explain your process, comment on your findings as well. What sources look especially promising and why? What other kinds of sources would be helpful if you found them?

The extra version of the assignment adds annotations of five of the sources that you think you may use for the final project. After each of five entries in your bibliography, write a summary of the source consisting of at least 150 words of texts that captures the author's work as well as you can. Use and cite at least two short quotations from each source within your annotations; in doing so, try to find key phrases that capture something important about the author's analysis.

If you have any questions about whether a source is appropriate for the project or would count toward the minimum of five, just let me know. For all your citations, use Chicago Style in the Notes and Bibliography (NB) version. For formatting the paper in Chicago NB Style, you can use my quick guide (PDF). If you use a tool that generates bibliography entries automatically, that's fine as a starting point, but such tools often get details wrong. Do the final version of your entry yourself, carefully. You are responsible for what you submit.