Annotated Bibliography - 650ish words

Humanities

Annotated Bibliography

Assignment Rationale:

When I was in college a professor told me that the job of a university was to teach you where the library was. His point was that college, above any other agenda, should teach a student how to learn. Being a self-learner or a life-long learner begins by knowing how to find reliable and useful information. An annotated bibliography is an activity that builds these skills.

This assignment has you develop a list of six reputable, academic sources clustered around a specific topic.

Requirements

1. Identify a topic appropriate to our course.

   • Anything we study in Humanities during the time period covered in this course is fair game. (For example, Intro to Humanities courses can do any humanities topic while Greek and Roman course would need to limit themselves to topics from those time periods. (10 points)

2. Cite each source using the MLA style guide. (5 points each)

   • 2 book sources

   • 2 articles from a library database

   • 2 websites or other internet resources (the still must be academic and reliable)

3. Annotate each source: Write a short annotation (6-10 sentences) describing the quality and usefulness of the source. (10 points each) Each annotation should

   • Summarize the material in the source (3-5 sentences)

   • Assess the reliability of the source. This may include looking at any discernible bias in the source, the age of the source, the methodology, etc. (2-3 sentences)

   • Describe what this source would be most useful for. (1-2 sentences)

Additional Tips

Some helpful questions when evaluating a source:

• Is the author qualified to write on this topic? If it is a web source, is the author or editor listed?

• When was this source created or last updated?  Does the source need to be current and up-to-date on the topic? 

• Based on the source’s list of works cited, does it seem as though the author spent a long time creating the source?  (The length of the research and writing process can often be revealing!)

• Who is the intended audience of the source?

• Does the information presented match what you already understand of the topic?

• Are there spelling errors, grammatical errors, or other typos?

For electronic sources avoid the following

Please don’t include sites from any of the following. Some are reputable, but I want you to really search out the more academically rigorous sites.

• Wikipedia

• General Study Sites like: Sparks Notes, Cliff Notes, Study.com, etc.

• Basic dictionaries like: Merriam Webster’s

• General and basic encyclopedias like: Encyclopedia Britannica

Watch the video online for further instructions.

Possible Topics

Greek and Roman or Intro

These are intended as examples, but are not exhaustive. Anything we have studied in this class, or that fits in the time period is fair game

Greek and Roman

• Greek Philosophy

  • Pre-Socratics, Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, etc.

• Roman Rhetoric

  • Cicero, Cato

• Political Configurations in the ancient world

  • The Greek Polis, Athenian Democracy, Roman Republic, Roman Empire

• Literature

  • Greek Theatre (Tragedy, Comedy, Satyr Plays)

  • Epic Poetry

    • Hesiod, Homer, The Iliad, The Odyssey, Virgil, The Aeneid

  • Poetry

    • Sappho, Ovid

  • Religious Literature

    • Bible

• Art

  • Sculpture, Pottery, Architecture

• Important Figures

  • Solon, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Octavian/ Caesar Augustus, Hannibal of Carthage, Jesus, Paul, the apostle, Constantine

• Religion

  • Greek Religion, Roman Religion, Rise of Christianity

Possible Topics

Medieval and Renaissance and Reformation and Intro

These are intended as examples, but are not exhaustive. Anything we have studied in this class, or that fits in the time period is fair game

• Important Historical Figures and Thinkers: Charlemagne, Martin Luther, Thomas Aquinas, Copernicus, Galileo, Erasmus Darwin, The Medici Family etc.

• Writers or Works: Shakespeare, Cervantes, Beowulf, Song of Roland, Augustine’s Confessions, Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Chaucer

• Science and Technology: The Printing Press, Microscope, Telescope, Beer

• Political Figures: Leo X, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Charlemagne, Popes like Leo X

• Specific Artists or Movements like: Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Raphael, Botticelli, Leonardo Da Vinci, Romanesque, Gothic Art, Iconographic Art of the Medieval Period, Renaissance

• Misc: Gothic Cathedral, Scholasticism, Monasticism, Medieval Mysticism, Crusades, The Black Death/Plague

• Basically anything we have studied in this class is fair game.

Possible Topics

Enlightenment and Romanticism and Intro

These are intended as examples, but are not exhaustive. Anything we have studied in this class, or that fits in the time period is fair game

• Important Historical Figures and Thinkers: Descartes, Kant, Hume, Voltaire, Freud, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Isaac Newton

• Writers: Mary Shelley, William Wordsworth Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Edgar Allen Poe, Walt Whitman, etc.

• Science and Technology: Galvanism, Steam Engine, Trains, Calculus, Astrology, Royal Society, etc.

• Political Figures: Louis XIV, William Wilberforce, Thomas Cromwell, George III, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Napoleon

• Artistic Movements or Artists like: Baroque, Impressionism, Abstract, Art Nouveau

• Artistic Mediums: Sculpture, Architecture, Musical Theatre, Ballet, Painting, Epic Poetry, etc.

• Basically anything we have studied in this class is fair game.