Annotated Bibliography Assignment
Due Wednesday, October 14
Compile an online annotated bibliography of ten (10) secondary sources (books, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers) related to your research topic. You can and should also include major archival collections related to your research topic. Print the bibliography and hand it in in class on 10/14. The printed bibliography should use Chicago style, as in the following example:
Weinberger, David. Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. New York: Times Books, 2007.
You may use Zotero.org, EndNote Web, RefWorks.com, CiteULike.org, or any other method you like to post your bibliography online as long as the bibliographic data is retained. (Posting a Word document online doesn’t count; posting plain text on a web page also doesn’t count. Check with me if you have a method in mind I haven’t mentioned here.) Note that some of these services require that readers of your bibliography have an account with the service, while others make the bibliography freely available online; either level of access is fine for this assignment.
Each source should be annotated with at least one full paragraph (but no more than two) of summary and commentary. Briefly summarize the work’s argument, scope, and method, then briefly evaluate the work.
Grading Criteria
- Sources — Are these authoritative scholarly sources? Are they all relevant to your topic? Are they reasonably recent, when possible?
- Annotations — Does every annotation both summarize and evaluate the source? Is the writing clear and useful?
- Mechanics — Is there both an online version and a print version? Is everything spelled and formatted correctly? Is all necessary information given in the citation? Have the instructions in the assignment been followed?
UPDATE: TECH HELP
Folks have asked for more help with getting their bibliographies online. Here are my tips:
Zotero
- If you’re using Zotero, be sure that you have downloaded and installed the 2.0 beta version. This version lets you publish automatically to the web (on zotero.org).
- To publish to the web with Zotero 2.0, you’ll need to register for an account on Zotero.org. You’ll then need to sync the Zotero library on your hard drive up to the website following these instructions. When you’ve done that, you’ll have an online “library” much like mine. That online library fulfills the requirement for this assignment.
- Here are the instructions for adding a note to a Zotero citation. Type your annotations in that note. When you produce the printed version, you will (as far as I can tell) need to copy and paste each note individually, unfortunately. However, the note will appear automatically on the web after you sync.
- Here’s a sample Zotero bibliography.
RefWorks
- If you’re using RefWorks, make sure that you’ve registered through the NYU RefWorks page, not simply by going to refworks.com. You can also get to the NYU-licensed version of RefWorks via NYUHome on the Library channel on the Research tab.
- Once you’ve got a login for RefWorks, create a folder with your sources. Go to Folders –> Share and fill in the information there. Click Save, and you’ll have a URL to send to other people so that they can see your bibliography online.
- To annotate a citation in RefWorks, click “Edit” for that citation and then type in the “Notes” field.
- Here’s a sample RefWorks bibliography.
