Research project: The Annotated Bibliography

Purpose: To better understand literary research, to learn how to navigate the MLA Bibliography and other library resources, and to understand how to build literary arguments

The assignment: Please choose a selection (a text—poem, play, short story, novel) from any period in the textbook (Romantic, Victorian, Twentieth Century). Pick something that you find interesting and that you would like to know more about.

For example: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

For example: “Goblin Market”

For example: “Shooting an Elephant”

Once you have a topic idea, you need to focus it into one question, often called a research question (See examples above). Your goal, then, is to find sources that answer your question in some way. Through this process, you will be able to answer your question with a strong statement: a thesis. Literary research is a little different from the types of research you may be familiar with because the text itself becomes a source. The secondary resources support an opinion on that text. Here is where literary theory comes into play.

The specifics: You will need five sources from the databases or other library resources, your main text, and a thesis statement. The annotations will contain a short summary of the source, a discussion of the source’s credibility, and how the source supports the thesis statement. Each source summary in the annotated bibliography will beshould be 250-300 words.

(http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/annotated-bibliographies/)

Texts: The Norton Anthology of the English Literature.

Ninth edition. Package 2.

M.H. Abrams, General editor.

W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

New York 2012.

ISBN:978-0-393-91301-9

Stoker, Bram (adapted by Jason Cobley). Dracula: The Graphic Novel, The Original Text. 2012

Stoker, Bram. Dracula