Annotated Bibliography

As you conduct research on your capstone project topic, you will need to keep track of your sources and evaluate them to determine how they fit into your project. Your annotated bibliography will include a list of at least eight sources you have located and read carefully. These sources may not all appear in the bibliography of your final project. Some will turn out not to be that useful and you will find others as you work on drafting your project. But this will show me that you have been researching and preparing to write your project. The library Research Guide has tabs about finding booksLinks to an external site. and journal articlesLinks to an external site. about your topic for this assignment.

Each entry in an annotated bibliography begins with a citation for the source. You will be using different documentation styles (MLA, Chicago, APA, etc.) depending on your disciplinary focus. It is important for you to follow the rules of this documentation style exactly. The Purdue Online Writing Lab is a great resource for this: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owlLinks to an external site.. The library Research GuideLinks to an external site. also has information about citing your sources in a variety of formats and writing annotations.

Following each bibliographic entry will be a paragraph-length annotation (approximately 4-6 sentences). Each annotation should do the following:

summarize — what are the source’s main arguments?;

assess — does this source reveal bias? Do you agree with the writer’s approach/methods/ arguments? Why or why not?; and

reflect —how does this source fit into your project? Has it changed the way you think about your topic or approach? Which cognate or disciplinary perspective does the source provide?

We will practice writing annotations of our common readings on surveillance on our discussion board. I provide an example on the next page of an annotation for a source to be used in a literary essay (note the use of MLA-style documentation).

You will be assessed on the formatting of your citations as well as the quality and depth of your annotations.

As always, I am here to help you with this process. I will be asking you to “check in” via our discussion board about your research progress and will offer suggestions and guide you toward resources.

Here’s an example of an annotation for a literary source (using MLA style).

Kerr, Frances. “Feeling Half-Feminine: Modernism and the Politics of Emotion in The Great Gatsby.” American

Literature 68 (1996): 405-31.

This article provides an analysis of the homoerotics in the Fitzgerald’s novel and Nick’s attraction to McKee and to Gatsby. Kerr thinks the tennis girl with sweat on her lip is Jordan (which I will argue in my essay is incorrect). She notes that Jordan has more control over her emotions than the other women in the novel (Daisy and Myrtle). Kerr argues that Nick’s narrative about his dumping her leads the reader to believe that it is Jordan’s indifference, shallowness, and dishonesty that prompt his move. The psychological subtext of Gatsby, however, suggests an entirely different motivation. Nick Carraway identifies with and feels most romantically drawn not to ‘masculine’ women but to ‘feminine’ men” (418). While I agree with much of Kerr’s argument and it will help me talk about homoerotics in Fitzgerald’s canon, I am going to provide a counterargument and evidence for different reading of the tennis girl. The article is written from the disciplinary perspective of English Literature (OR – the article is written from the cognate perspective of the Humanities).