I feel like I should know this...

[Skittish]

Hi. I feel like I should know how to do this by now but I always seem to struggle with annotated bibliographies (I'm in the humanities). Would anyone be willing to kindly offer some advice? 

 

Thank you  

[AP]

Do you mean that you struggle with the writing? Or the finding of them?

If it's the second, my first advice is to go to your reference librarian.

If it's the first, I don't think you should worry much as there are many ways to do these. Go to your librarian to find good examples. A good way to think about an annotated bibliography is to imagine that all the authors of your books are having coffee and talking. Imagine their books in dialogue with each other, not isolated (this is not a list of mini-reviews). How would the conversation go? Imagine you are a silent observer taking notes.

Weigh in, as with any paper, what's the purpose of your essay in the form of a question. This may change, but it works to have some sort of aim at the beginning. For example: How do different disciplines intersect migration and gender? What I do first is trying to write about the umbrella topic. Say you are writing about migration and gender. Then just start writing about this huge umbrella topic and begin to read your books and "annotate" what they say. The best annotated bibliographies are those who tackle topics rather than authors.

Think in clusters, as conversations often go. Three authors may talk about transnational gender issues, do they tangentially tackle migration? How so? Oh, this ONE has a great approach to the topic from a power structure perspective. What does this mean for the umbrella topic you are writing about? And soon you'll be threading authors together into topics/approaches/etc. Other authors may explain gendered migration from rural to urban areas.

Be prepared to talk about authors' contributions, like in a book review, but remember that those contributions may not be necessarily THE foremost contribution they argued they make. For example, you may be using a lot of anthropologists for the gender and migration topic. Maybe you include a historian whose whole purpose is to demonstrate constructions of femininity in Central America through Chinese migrants beauty contests. His/Her methods may be innovative and that's probably the greater contribution of the monograph to her field (history), but not in terms of your essay.

If you have few authors the conversation may be over too soon. In those cases, where I had three or four, I stressed the "schools" they came from and wrote more about the theoretical framework informing their research than the book themselves.

Disclaimer: I am not a gender/migration scholar so those of you who are, I am sorry if my vocabulary is basic.

[rising_star]

If you want to know more about writing an annotated bibliography, there are some great resources online about writing one from the UNC Writing Center. A key question is whether the annotations are meant to be summative, evaluative, or both. Knowing that helps a lot in terms of thinking about the structure of each annotation. 

[pro Augustis]

@AP and @rising_star have both given helpful advice. All I have to contribute is rather more basic. When I write an annotated bibliography, I find it helpful to start thinking about each source with the very simple question: "why have I included this source?" Obviously you need to go deeper than that in the final product, but I find that the question can be a good way to start thinking about what exactly it is that each of these works offer that makes them relevant to your project. 

[Skittish]

Hi. Thank you AP, rising star and Augustis  very much for your replies. (By the way my question was not about the actual finding of sources  sorry for not being clearer). 

 

Anyways, all of that was very helpful. I guess I struggle most with determining an authors methodology. I know this might not be required for every annotated bibliography, but in this case I need to address it for each source. 

 

Any more thoughts? 

Thank you again  

[bhr]

On 10/22/2016 at 10:28 PM, Skittish said:

Hi. Thank you AP, rising star and Augustis  very much for your replies. (By the way my question was not about the actual finding of sources  sorry for not being clearer). 

 

Anyways, all of that was very helpful. I guess I struggle most with determining an authors methodology. I know this might not be required for every annotated bibliography, but in this case I need to address it for each source. 

 

Any more thoughts? 

Thank you again  

Go talk to your writing center. Almost every R1/PhD granting institution is going to have a solid writing center full of people who can help you navigate the different questions you may have here.

 

As for determining methodology, that's usually pretty simple to determine. It usually just comes down to how the collected their data, and that should be described at some point in the article/book. IF there isn't data of some sort (even observations can be a form of data in this case) than this probably isn't an article you want to use.

[Skittish]

13 hours ago, bhr said:

Go talk to your writing center. Almost every R1/PhD granting institution is going to have a solid writing center full of people who can help you navigate the different questions you may have here.

 

As for determining methodology, that's usually pretty simple to determine. It usually just comes down to how the collected their data, and that should be described at some point in the article/book. IF there isn't data of some sort (even observations can be a form of data in this case) than this probably isn't an article you want to use.

Thanks for your reply. I'm in the humanities so we don't really work with data and observations in the same way those in the sciences do...

Sorry if Im misunderstanding your reply. 

Thanks again.

 

[bhr]

2 hours ago, Skittish said:

Thanks for your reply. I'm in the humanities so we don't really work with data and observations in the same way those in the sciences do...

Sorry if Im misunderstanding your reply. 

Thanks again.

 

Huh? I'm in the humanities as well, and all of our publication comes from some amount of data collection, field work, personal observation, etc. What are you thinking when you say that you don't have data?

[Skittish]

41 minutes ago, bhr said:

Huh? I'm in the humanities as well, and all of our publication comes from some amount of data collection, field work, personal observation, etc. What are you thinking when you say that you don't have data?

We don't "collect data" or do field work in my field, unless you simply mean doing research. I would like to politely point out that I think we are misunderstanding each other. We can chat over a private message about our specific fields otherwise I'd prefer not to discuss specifics publicly. Thanks again for your replies  

[bhr]

I'm not sure if you are just new to graduate school or research, or what, but researching usually includes some sort of data. That can be quantitative (studies, survey, etc), but can be as simple as doing a read around of different articles and looking at what others are saying about an issue.

I'm in Rhet/Comp, which is as humanities as you can get, and have friends in philosophy, english, religious studies, etc. Every single bit of research any of us try to publish is grounded in some sort of data collection, unless you are just writing an OpEd. Every single paper I've ever read or edited includes a section about how they came up with their conclusions, whether it came from small group discussions, observations, empirical research, lit reviews, software testing, etc... Believe me when I say that your field is not unique, and that knowledge isn't just created from nowhere.

[pro Augustis]

Data doesn't have to be something from the lab. If I am understanding @bhr correctly, the reference is rather to the evidence on which the conclusions are based. In my field (Classics/Ancient History), that evidence comes from ancient literature and material culture. A scholar's methodology is how they handle that data: do they focus on ancient literature alone or also bring in inscriptions or archaeological finds? Are their interpretations of their data driven by any particular theory? Do they seem to give more credit to source X or source Y and for what reason? and so forth. 

[Skittish]

8 hours ago, bhr said:

I'm not sure if you are just new to graduate school or research, or what, but researching usually includes some sort of data. That can be quantitative (studies, survey, etc), but can be as simple as doing a read around of different articles and looking at what others are saying about an issue.

I'm in Rhet/Comp, which is as humanities as you can get, and have friends in philosophy, english, religious studies, etc. Every single bit of research any of us try to publish is grounded in some sort of data collection, unless you are just writing an OpEd. Every single paper I've ever read or edited includes a section about how they came up with their conclusions, whether it came from small group discussions, observations, empirical research, lit reviews, software testing, etc... Believe me when I say that your field is not unique, and that knowledge isn't just created from nowhere.

We simply don't use the word "data" in my field but I never implied my field is unique or that knowledge is created out of nowhere (but thanks for pointing out the obvious). I am not "new" to graduate school. I am also very well aware of what research is as I conduct it in three different languages. Your assumptions are based on very little information and your tone is arrogant and rude. Believe me when I say that you certainly don't know everything. And it's quite clear that you don't know as much about every field in the humanities as you tell yourself you do. It's also evident that you are the type who likes to feel important by talking down to random people online. This speaks not only to your character but to your own obvious insecurities.  I won't be drawn into any further debate with you because, as I POLITELY said before, I believe we are misunderstanding each other. Therefore any reply that you will surely feel the need to make won't be read or acknowledged. Thanks to all those who were helpful and pleasant in their replies.

[bhr]

3 hours ago, Skittish said:

We simply don't use the word "data" in my field but I never implied my field is unique or that knowledge is created out of nowhere (but thanks for pointing out the obvious). I am not "new" to graduate school. I am also very well aware of what research is as I conduct it in three different languages. Your assumptions are based on very little information and your tone is arrogant and rude. Believe me when I say that you certainly don't know everything. And it's quite clear that you don't know as much about every field in the humanities as you tell yourself you do. It's also evident that you are the type who likes to feel important by talking down to random people online. This speaks not only to your character but to your own obvious insecurities.  I won't be drawn into any further debate with you because, as I POLITELY said before, I believe we are misunderstanding each other. Therefore any reply that you will surely feel the need to make won't be read or acknowledged. Thanks to all those who were helpful and pleasant in their replies.

Look, I tried to help. The "won't be read or acknowledged" bit is the stuff of internet trolls and assholes, among which you are clearly counted. I kept trying to make it clear that there is always going to be a "data collection" piece to every paper, whether it's called data or not, and even gave you examples. @pro Augustiseven gave direct examples from a different branch of the humanities that supported my point, but you want to be handed answers over DM instead of just engaging. The reason we have these conversations publicly is so other people, blessed with the same lack of insight that you have, can benefit.