The Annotated Bibliography

What is an Annotated Bibliography?

An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents designed to tell your reader something more than bare bibliographical data. Each citation should be followed by a brief descriptive and evaluative paragraph of about 150 words. This is the annotation. The purpose the annotated bibliography in this class is to provide information on the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the source cited. Annotations often contain information on the author of the work in question (academic affiliations, past publications, and assessment of reputation may be included), a general statement and evaluation of contents, an identification and assessment of thesis and arguments, and a statement of the relevance of the work to your research project.

Please note: Annotations should not be simply descriptive, but also critical and evaluative. They should analyze the author's point of view, clarity, accuracy, and authority.

How do I write an Annotated Bibliography?

Producing a good annotated bibliography requires more than an uninformed stab at analyzing a source. The annotated bibliography should represent a solid selection of works that provide a variety of perspectives on the topic and should include a range of dates of production: at least half your sources should generally be from the past 10 to 20 years.

First cite the book, article, or document using Chicago-style humanities/documentary-note bibliography format. Click here for examples.

Then write the annotation of 150 or so words which should summarize the central theme(s) and scope of the book or article. This should include an evaluation of the authority or background of the author, a comment on the intended audience, comparisons and contrasts with other works cited, and an explanation of how this work will contribute to your research topic. This should all be done in efficient, concise, grammatical prose.

Annotated Bibliography sample entries:

Curtis, Perry. Apes and Angels: The Irishman in Victorian Caricature. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996.

Although L. Perry Curtis, Jr. has published several articles and books about the intimate connection between Ireland and Britain, he is most known for his monumental work Apes and Angels. Drawing on the largest comic weeklies of London, Dublin, and New York, Curtis argues that the British portrayal of the Irish underwent a massive change during the nineteenth century. Originally depicted as drunk, bumbling peasants, Irishmen were increasingly depicted – especially during the 1860s when agrarian violence and massive emigration to London threatened the English economy and psyche – as apelike monsters that would destroy law and order. Since the book’s publication in 1971, it has attracted a large following of historians such as Reginald Horsman and Raymond Douglas who have extended Curtis’ exploration of British racism to other time periods such as the brief interlude between World War I and II and the 1980s. Despite recent criticism from historians like R.F. Foster, the book remains an important part of any inquiry into British perceptions of the Irish.

Foster, R.F. Paddy and Mr. Punch: Connections in Irish and English History. London: Penguin, 1993.

R.F. Foster is the Carroll Professor of Irish history at Oxford, and has written extensively on the growth of Irish nationalism during the Victorian era and the construction of Irish identity through music, art, and the writing of history. In this collection of essays, he attempts to understand the multiple identities that Irish emigrants possessed as they tried to reconcile their position within the empire as people stuck between two countries – not really British, they were not Irish either. One chapter that stands out is the title essay called Paddy and Mr. Punch. In this outstanding chapter Foster attempts to deconstruct L. Perry Curtis’ monumental work Apes and Angels and understand the errors and omissions in that work. What emerges from his careful historical analysis and criticism is an understanding of British racism towards the Irish as malleable and ever changing. According to Foster, British perceptions of the Irish were formed in the heat of the political moment, not in some idealized vacuum, and can only be understood by placing them in their proper context. Although Curtis’ work does discuss some aspects of the political situation that created the British stereotypes of the Irish, it is often muted and implied rather than explicitly stated. Foster’s writing provides a witty and informative update to Curtis’ work.

Horsman, Reginald. “Origins of Racial Anglo-Saxonism before 1850.” Journal of the History of Ideas 37, no. 3 (1976): 387-410.

Reginald Horsman is an emeritus faculty member at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee and has published several articles and books on expansion and race relations in the United States. In this article published in the Journal of the History of Ideas Horsman explores the idea that Anglo-Saxonism, as it existed in Britain, was originally non-racial and emphasized the freedom and justice inherent in Anglo-Saxon institutions rather than celebrating any idea of racial superiority. According to Horsman, it was only after the British began importing the ideas of the American ethnologists, who had used Anglo-Saxonism to justify slavery, that the ideology became racist. Horsman’s emphasis on the transformation of Anglo-Saxonism from a relatively benign doctrine, which justified England’s break from the Catholic church, to a virulent doctrine that justified the expulsion of non-British people from the United Kingdom, is an important reminder that not all doctrines arguing that there are innate differences between countries are harmful. Indeed some can act as powerful symbols of national pride and unity.