Carleton’s Annotated Bibliography Assignment

Ever get lost in the woods? In the city? In a neighborhood? Sure, we all have and it leaves us feeling panicked, overwhelmed and confused. If we took note of the signs around us and kept track of them, we wouldn’t get lost in the first place. Research can be like this. We can be lost in a maze or a storm of information and not know our way out or what it all means – unless we have kept track. If we record our “research trail” and keep track of sources, dates, times, page numbers, names, ideas, connections etc. then we can find our way back out of the mass of information and make some sense of it.

The biggest mistake a researcher can make is to not document the search in an organized fashion.

Some of you may have learned the basics of documentation with a system of note cards and you may use this to assemble your various bibliographies if you wish. Which method you use is not nearly as important as having a method - carefully developing a useful, organized system for recording and organizing what you find in your research.

An annotated bibliography is a list of sources (bibliographic references) that include notes (annotations) briefly describing each source and rating its value to your essay. Your annotated bibliography should list five to six sources and briefly describe, discuss and rank them as excellent, good, fair or poor and explain why you assigned each rank. Each source should start with a MLA style bibliographic reference in bold type followed by a paragraph of specific description and/or ranking in regular type.

Your first step is to start reading, and reading widely. If you were a cow, it would mean grazing constantly and all over the field rather than occasionally and only in one spot. You know that your final draft must cite at least five sources, but you cannot limit your search to the first fives sources you find. It might be that sixth source (or twentieth) that really gives you what you need. Like that cow, if you limit your grazing, you’ll never find the sweetest grass.

The next step is to start recording your findings. START NOW. Write down everything. This is where you will build your essay gradually but you must do so regularly. Don’t forget to list bibliographic info on anything you photocopy – don’t forget page numbers, dates, etc. For electronic sources, you must record the date you found the material as well as the URL address.

Some specifics: find 15-20 possible sources (essays, articles, paper or electronic journals, book chapters, websites) of these, pick the most useful 5-6 sources and read them thoroughly enough to get some good notes and be able to discuss them specifically and thoughtfully in your annotations. You should have already started some preliminary research, start recording your research NOW. You should record: title, author, publisher, city, date, quotes & page numbers, ideas and connections. If the source is a periodical, record the date, volume and issue. BE SURE to distinguish between your ideas and the quotes to avoid plagiarism.

Sample of a properly annotated source for a paper on socio-economic inequality:

Phillips, Kevin. Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the
American Rich
. New York: Broadway Books. 2002. 1-138.


Excellent source with extensive notes, bibliography and index. 474 pages.

This is the most recent work of the well-known Republican Kevin Phillips known as “one of the nation’s most perceptive thinkers” . This volume is full of detailed charts and graphs for easy access to important statistical information on wealth concentration, individual and family wealth and fortunes made listed according to industry. Phillips’ early chapters deal with the 18th & 19th Centuries and how the fortunes that founded America were often profits made from “wartime spoils”. He charts how wealth concentration has changed over time: the top 1% owned 10-20% of all wealth after the Revolution but now the top 1% owns about 50% of all wealth. Phillips exposes the “myth” of laissez-faire economics and he points out the overworked nature of the average American: “over 350 hours more per year” than Europeans. The problem with this, Phillips says, is that this sort of unchecked concentration of wealth is a bad influence on democracy and ultimately gives the ultra-rich far more political influence than the rest of us resulting in a plutocracy.

** For your final “Works Cited” page, list your sources alphabetically. You may want to do that for your annotated bibliography as well, or you can organize it according to rank (ie: most useful to least useful etc.)

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