In the Time of the Butterflies/Manners: Annotated Bibliography

A Brief Refresher about Annotated Bibliographies:

An annotated bibliography goes beyond just properly citing the sources you have used—it also summarizes and evaluates their arguments.

You are expected to have at least three non-encyclopedia sources for your research (and I encourage you to have more than that!). For each source you use, you must:

1. Summarize/paraphrase the information given—write a quick summary of what you have learned from the source. What is the point it is trying to make? What topics are covered?

2. Evaluate the information—What does your source do well? What does it not do well? How useful is the source? What is the goal of the source? [note: Just because a source has an argument does not make it unreliable. You can read a source with a clear agenda that still provides you with useful information, but, you must understand what that agenda is. Understanding the built-in bias of a source will help you assess how much you can trust the information given.]

3. Explain how this information is useful—how does the source inform or complicated your research question? Does this source bring you closer to an answer to your research question? Can you use the argument presented to support your claim? Or is it useful as a counterargument?

Each annotation should be between 100 and 200 words.

To the right is a sample annotation, taken from Purdue University’s Online Writing Lab. I strongly recommend that you look at the website (the link is posted on Schoology) for more information about annotated bibliographies and MLA citation in general.

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1995. Print.

Lamott's book offers honest advice on the nature of a writing life, complete with its insecurities and failures. Taking a humorous approach to the realities of being a writer, the chapters in Lamott's book are wry and anecdotal and offer advice on everything from plot development to jealousy, from perfectionism to struggling with one's own internal critic. In the process, Lamott includes writing exercises designed to be both productive and fun.

Lamott offers sane advice for those struggling with the anxieties of writing, but her main project seems to be offering the reader a reality check regarding writing, publishing, and struggling with one's own imperfect humanity in the process. Rather than a practical handbook to producing and/or publishing, this text is indispensable because of its honest perspective, its down-to-earth humor, and its encouraging approach.

Chapters in this text could easily be included in the curriculum for a writing class. Several of the chapters in Part 1 address the writing process and would serve to generate discussion on students' own drafting and revising processes. Some of the writing exercises would also be appropriate for generating classroom writing exercises. Students should find Lamott's style both engaging and enjoyable.

In the sample annotation above, the writer includes three paragraphs: a summary, an evaluation of the text, and a reflection on its applicability to his/her own research, respectively. Your annotations should follow this model.

The tricky thing about research is that you can’t rely on finding exactly what you need the first time you find a source. You may have to look at multiple texts before figuring out which ones will be most useful in answering your research question. If you are not using a source to answer your question, you do not need to write an entry in your annotated bibliography for it.