Annotated Bibliographies

Announcements Blog for sources and space for announcements DO NOT MEET at PMAE next week (October 17 th ). Meet at Sever Meet at PMAE on October 24 th Visit to ISGM Nov 21 st Paper due next week  Short Paper #2: Critiquing the Curatorial Voice (due Oct 17)  Choose an object highlight in the British Museums’ A History of the World Channel ( px#Listentoprogrammes) px#Listentoprogrammes  In 2-3 pages, provide a critique of the approach espoused by the curator.  What information is provided? What do you feel is missing? How do you experience the authority of the curator? Do you feel the information is accessible to a broad audience? What other information do you think should be included? Letting Go discussion

An annotated bibliography is a helpful research tool that lists useful resources for a specific research topic or area.  It includes a short commentary for each book, article, Web site, etc. that it lists.  The commentary is descriptive (tells about the content) and evaluative(tells about the author's point of view, clarity and appropriateness of expression, and authority. Annotated bibliographies answer the question: "What would be the most relevant, most useful or most up-to-date sources for this topic?"  Goal: you engage in the work of scholarship, using your knowledge, research, and critical thinking skills.  Teaches you how to conduct research in your discipline and widens your understanding of a topic.  Excellent preparation for research essays.

Steps 1. SELECT A TOPIC  Pick a topic you can handle within your time and space limitations.  Don't pick anything so broad you can't say anything significant, or so narrow that there is nothing much to say. Try picking one aspect of a broad topic in which you're interested. 2. GET A GOOD OVERVIEW  Use good reference sources to get a handle on your topic, and perhaps identify the "classic" books and articles covering the subject.  Examples of sources are general and topical dictionaries and encyclopedias, handbooks, research guides and bibliographies. 3. FIND OUT WHAT MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE  Look for primary and secondary sources  When you look at sources determine if they contain information pertinent to your topic

4. SELECT THE BEST REPRESENTATIVE MATERIAL  This is more than just mechanical work. Use your own judgment as you review the materials you have selected for your preliminary list.  Select books, articles and media that are informative, helpful, timely, relatively unbiased (or pick opposing views for balance), and which, taken together, provide good coverage of your topic. 5. DIG DEEPER  Review your sources. Is your coverage "lightweight“?  Take a look at footnotes, endnotes, bibliographies, and reference lists included in your sources  Do more than one of them refer to the same source articles or books? Would that article or book be considered important to the subject area?  Take a look at existing bibliographies, which might be a separate book, a periodical article, or posted on the Web (but only if from a credible, identified source). If several cite the same item, and it's relevant to your topic, see if that work is available and would meet your criteria.  If your list of sources seem a little scattered and unrelated to each other, you might want to think about scoping down your topic to something more specific.

6. WRITE YOUR ANNOTATION  Include author, date, publisher, city published, date published, pages used, medium type, editors, journal titles, website names and URLs.  For each source, write a summary of what it contains. Review source criticism lecture. Other sources:  Add evaluative comments telling what is or is not covered, what particular viewpoint is represented, any strengths or weaknesses you notice, and where it might fit into an overview of your topic.  Be sure you have complete bibliographic information for each selection.  Your annotations should be in alphabetical order using the MLA format  You will include two headings: Primary Sources and Secondary Sources

7. REVIEW YOUR WORK  CONTENT: Does it cover your topic fairly completely? Are all major points of view represented, and/or identified? If not, do you inform your reader in the Introduction or otherwise?  STYLE: Are your comments consistent in voice, tone, level of language? Is the bibliography well organized?  FORM: Are your comments grammatically correct? Spelling? Punctuation? Is the work organized, spaced and punctuated accurately and consistently, according to the style manual you are using?  OVERALL: Would your bibliography be helpful to someone who wanted to find out which materials might give a good representation of the information available on this specific topic?

Format citations according to MLA guidelines Book: Last, First M. Title. City Published: Publisher, Year Published. Print. Chapter in or whole volume: Last, First M. Section Title. Book/Anthology Title. Ed. First M. Last. Edition. City Published: Publisher, Year Published. Print. Magazine: Last, First M. "Article title." Magazine Day Month Year: Page(s). Print. Scholarly journal: Last, First M. "Article." Journal Name Volume.Issue (Year): Page(s). Print. Website: Last, First M. "Website Article." Website. Publisher, Last Updated Day Month Year. Web. Date Accessed Day Month Year. (Do not include the words "Last Updated" or "Date Accessed" in your citation.) Online database (such as Jstor, Lexis Nexis, and ProQuest): Last, First M. "Article." Journal Volume.Issue (Year): Pages. Database. Web. Date Accessed Day Month Year. TV or Radio: "Episode." Contributors. Program Title. Network. Call Letter, City, Date. Medium. (Italicize the title of the program.) Video: Title. Contributors. Distributor, Year of release. Medium viewed. Recorded sound (CD, mp3, WMA, AAC): Contributors. "Song." Album. Band. Manufacturer, Year. Medium. Images: Last, First M. Title. Year created. Medium of work. Museum/collection, City. (If the image is found online, list the name of the website instead of museum/collection and city.)

Example Baumgarten, Linda. What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America. Williamsburg: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Print. Pages 16 – 208. In exploring Colonial Williamsburg’s vast costume collections, Baumgarten highlights the importance of fashion as a form of communication. Through the study of fashion evolution among colonial Americans, she describes the subtle and sometimes drastic changes in clothing trends that defined particular groups of colonists. She also reveals the myths and meanings surrounding colonial fashion that have been perpetuated throughout history. Her ultimate aim is to present the importance of clothing study as a form of understanding generations past.