WMST 2500 A/B ON WOMEN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ASSIGNMENT
10% of your final grade due: Nov 23rd (Glendon) Nov. 24th (Atkinson)
An annotated bibliography is, simply, an organized list of sources, each of which is followed by a concise note or "annotation." The annotations are introduced briefly in a one page (double-spaced) opening statement.
What is an annotation? This assignment asks you to produce evaluative annotations. Evaluative annotations provide a brief explanation/evaluation of the work. A good evaluative annotation:
N.B. ANNOTATIONS VS. ABSTRACTS Abstracts are the purely descriptive summaries often found at the beginning of scholarly journal articles or in periodical indexes.
Goal of this assignment: This assignment builds upon your reading and analytical skills and introduces library research. The annotated bibliography assignment is designed to help you to find and evaluate existing scholarship on women's issues as you develop your own understanding of the field. As you search for materials, you will discover that you define your own interests more precisely. The assignment also asks you to identify and assess different kinds of resources (refereed, popular feminist journals, Internet sources). What this assignment asks you to do-- finding, analyzing and evaluating materials -- is a necessary first step for any well-researched paper at the university level.
STEPS
A. Look over the syllabus. Check our class webpage under 'women's info on the net'. Identify one of the topics or areas of study that we will be examining in this course that is of particular interest to you -- or identify an area you would like to pursue that this course is not covering but you think fits well (check with us first!)
tip: Choose a topic in which you are really interested (rather than something that merely looks like it will be easy to research) since you will have the opportunity to write a major paper (or equivalent) on an area of your own interest in second term. If you choose wisely, this assignment should give you an early start in researching and evaluating existing scholarship. Although you are only required to annotate ten works, you will probably find many more useful items. You should make note of these for your own personal reference, since a final paper will require you access additional material to develop an analysis of the issue you choose. NB: Although it is desirable from the perspective of reduced workload (for you!) that the annotated bibliography can serve as foundational research for your final project, it is by no means necessary for your final project to be on the same topic as this bibliography.
B. Generate some questions about one of the topics in order to narrow your focus. You might be interested in the construction of gender, the politics of gender domination, the significance of racism in a variety of women's issues, a study of the issues for either the first or second wave of feminism in Canada, feminist cultural production etc.. But all of these areas are too broad for this assignment (or an essay!). What questions might you use to hone in on your particular interest in one of these areas? What interests you in the area of cultural production, for example? Let's say it's film. What do feminists think about film? Good question. But still too large -- 'feminist film theory' is still too vague -- a library search would return hundreds of hits. But start questioning, again: what are the key debates in this area? Are there different feminist perspectives? (How) does feminist film theory take these into account? Am I interested in filmmakers or film itself? Or spectators? How does feminist film theory account for different spectators? Is there any material on lesbians as spectators? etc. A trip to the library with these questions in mind will quickly turn up some answers - and perhaps a good narrow focus- say, 'the lesbian gaze in feminist film theory'.
C. Find ten (10) works which respond to your question. Works must include at least one (1) book, three (3) articles from a scholarly (refereed) feminist journal, (2) sources from a 'popular' feminist journal, and one (1) Internet source (the links page available on our course website will be helpful). You may also choose a film directed from a feminist perspective. It is highly likely that you will find dozens of items you might use -- take time when selecting which items to annotate. Once you get them off the shelves (or see them on your screen), it will be obvious that some items aren't useful for this project. You will need to check the table of contents/bibliographies/first few pages of others before you can make a decision about reading the entire text. Is there a review article in your pile that might help to situate you with respect to the field? If so, begin by reading it. In the end, choose ten items that can be put into conversation with one another - like asking ten people to a dinner party. You don't want all the people to be saying the same thing -- different approaches and disagreement can be stimulating... but you do want people to be on the same page, so to speak.
D. Write an annotation for each of the ten works you have chosen. (see 'what is an annotation?, above and the example, below).
E. Write a brief (one page double-spaced) introduction to your work. In this introduction, describe
F. Staple a print-out of this assignment outline to the back of your work.
Format: What should the annotated bibliography look like?
Style: You write and arrange the bibliographic entries (citations) just as you would any other bibliography. This is usually arranged alphabetically by author's last name. You may use any style guide you like. A style guide is basically a set of formal conventions used by a particular discipline. For example, if you are thinking about going into psychology, use this opportunity to familiarize yourself with the APA style guide. If you are in a humanities discipline, use MLA (Modern languages Association) style guide. Style guides are available in any library. General essay-writing guides for undergraduate students also contain this kind of information (one of these guides is cited on your syllabus for this course). Style guides are also available online from our class web page.
How long? Annotations should not be longer than a page (and might, realistically, be only half a page long). Most (but not all) style guides will direct you to provide your annotations single-spaced. In the case of single-spaced annotations, each annotation should be no more than half a page long.
How much knowledge of the field should I assume? The 'ideal reader' for your annotated bibliography should be students coming into the course next year or someone you know in class who is doing some research on the subject you have chosen. Write the kind of annotation that you would like to read to help you generally understand the work and its place in the field.
Finding material Frost Library/Glendon campus
Scott library/Ross Building, Main Campus (736-5915)
Nellie Langford Rowell Library (WMST Library) 204 Founders College, Main Campus
course webpage for Internet sources: http://www.yorku.ca/faculty/academic/cfisher/wstudies/info.htm
Examples: (Adapted from: Charles Penman's online guide to annotations - unfortunately, no longer available online).
Here are two versions of the same annotation. The first is passable, but the second is better. See if you can tell why.
Miles, Andrea. "Blacks vs. Browns." Some refereed journal Volume (date): pages.
In her article "Blacks vs. Browns" (Some refereed feminist journal volume (date): pages), Andrea Miles explores the racial relationship between Blacks and Latinos as they were intensified by the L.A. riots. She supports her essay by giving relevant immigration statistics and by integrating her own personal experiences. The author's purpose is to question the attention given to problems between blacks and whites in order to correctly identify the underlying race relations between Blacks and Latinos, especially the way in which immigration has added to the problem. She touches briefly upon the relationship between Black and Latina women. Ms. Miles speaks to policy makers and voters who grapple with the racial and immigration situation in Los Angeles.
Miles, Andrea. "Blacks vs. Browns." Some refereed journal Volume (date): pages.
In this article Miles grapples with the intricacies of race relations in Los Angeles and suggests that the L.A. riots were improperly portrayed as a "Watts II" or black/white issue, when in fact African American hostilities are more likely to be fueled by the recent influx of Latino and Asian immigrants who undermine the job market for blacks. She argues that this hostility is shared by both men and women. As a longtime L.A. resident and author, she supports her argument by juxtaposing her own personal experiences and observations against what is being projected in the media, using a variety of statistical and interview information for confirmation. The author's purpose is to question the attention given to the black/white paradigm in order to shift the focus to the real underlying employment threat that immigrants pose to blacks. Miles speaks largely to a white upper middle-class audience who increasingly feel a greater affiliation with recent Latino immigrants than to black Americans. This article sparked much controversy and is responded to repeatedly in the literature. Essential reading.