Writing an Annotated Bibliography: A Comprehensive Guide by Prof. Derek P. Royal, Study notes of English Language

Download Writing an Annotated Bibliography: A Comprehensive Guide by Prof. Derek P. Royal and more Study notes English Language in PDF only on Docsity! Prof. Derek P. Royal ENG 599 – Bibliography and Methods of Research Writing an Annotated Bibliography Much of what is below can be found in James L. Harner’s On Compiling an Annotated Bibliography, 2nd edition (New York: MLA, 2000), perhaps the single best source on writing an extended annotated bibliography. Before you get started, you need to decide on several preliminary issues. Harner suggests that you do the following: 1. Reexamine your author or subject carefully and make sure you are very familiar with the issues, themes, and potential controversies involved. 2. Decide what kind of sources you will include in your annotated bibliography. For instance, you need to decide if you will only include English language works (which may critically limit your bibliography); whether or not you will include annotations of book reviews, even brief ones; if it’s necessary to include unpublished dissertations in your bibliography (and for some, you just might need to); if you’re going to include works that are outright misdirected or even outrageous (in some cases you might); whether or not you should include less scholarly and more popular references to your author or topic; and how you will deal with Web-based resources. 3. If applicable, you may need to announce your project via a scholarly forum. For instance, if you advertise your project in a journal or on a listserv, you might find other scholars who can give you advice or who have direct knowledge of your subject area. 4. Decide on an appropriate style manual, familiarize yourself with it, and strictly adhere to its guidelines. There are three basic ways of organizing your bibliographical entries, and each comes with its own advantages and disadvantages: 1. Alphabetically by author  Advantages: in shorter annotated bibliographies that cover only 10-25 entries, this can be an easy way for readers to find your information.  Disadvantages: in longer bibliographies, it can be cumbersome for readers to have to look through all of your entries according to the author’s name. Since readers will probably be looking at the content of your entries, listing them by author may not contribute to readability. If you do have a long list alphabetized by author, please make sure the wording of your annotation is clear and meticulous, so as to make indexing and hypertext linking easier. 2. Chronologically by the date of publication  Advantages: listing entries this way is appropriate when you want to emphasize that scholarship on your topic has developed in a particular historical manner with different stages. You may also want to list chronologically if your bibliographic focus isn’t on just one work or topic.  Disadvantages: if chronological development isn’t important to your topic, then a large list organized in this manner may not be the clearest way of presenting your information. As with alphabetical listings, keep in mind that the wording of your annotation is very important here, one that will alloy easy indexing and hypertext linking. 3. Topically by subject or theme  Advantages: this kind of organization would be appropriate if you’re working with an author who has written in several genres or when the scholarship you’re citing focuses on individual works, multiple authors, or distinct topics. For longer, more extensive annotated bibliographies, this style may be most useful.  Disadvantages: arrangement by topic subject may not work with shorter bibliographies. And if you have a long list organized in this manner, you need to make sure that your annotations are carefully worded. With multiple sub-topics, readings might find your presentation a little confusing without adequate indexing/hyperlinking. Also, using this method may deemphasize historical development, if that is important to your work. According to Harner, there are three major steps to compiling your bibliographic entries: identifying the scholarly works, obtaining them, and writing the entries. 1. Identify the scholarly works  Survey existing bibliographies and reference works and determine which ones you will need to use extensively. These will include not only the most obvious reference sources (e.g., MLA International Bibliography, Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature, Modern Language Studies), but also specialized ones that focus on a particular author, topic, genre, or theme.  Decide on the order in which you plan on searching the bibliographies. You may want to begin with those focusing on your particular author or subject, then broaden your search to look at more general bibliographies and databases.  Become thoroughly acquainted with the reference works or databases you investigate. Every bibliographical work has its own format and organization, and to save yourself a lot of headache later on you should take some time to look at the introductory or explanatory material, if any, to each of your resources.  Keep careful records of all of your bibliographical entries, including information on where you found them. You will discover that many of the references sources you look at will overlap in content. Knowing what you’ve already found, and where you found it, can save you a lot of time. You don’t want to be repeating your notes or entries throughout your project. So as you research your reference sources, consult your master list in order to avoid duplication.  If you come across any vague, ambiguous, or what may at first appear to be useless information, don’t automatically discard it. You might want to investigate it further to see if it’s something that might actually be pertinent to your research. 2. Obtain the material  Start with your own library (either through physical holdings or full-text databases) and see what materials they have.  If your library does not have a particular journal article or book that you need, request the item from interlibrary loan. Please keep in mind that some items may take a long time to acquire, so do not wait until the last minute to request your source. As soon as you find that your library does not have the journal article or book, order it.  If there are libraries that you are willing to travel to, check out their holdings online (if available). This may be a quicker and more efficient way than requesting things