Hello, today we'll be discussing annotated bibliographies, what they are, what they look like, why we do them. An annotated bibliography is essentially a list of resources that you might use regarding a particular topic, and brief summaries of those sources. These summaries can be as short as 30 words, 50 words, 100 words, 150 words. I might have seen some annotated bibliographies that each annotation is 250 words. So an annotated bibliography is really just a list of sources that a writer annotates, which is describes or summarizes what that source is. You see them in a myriad of ways throughout scholarly writing. The one that comes to mind to me first is at the end of some books, they'll list a lot of resources that readers can turn to if they want to continue thinking about a particular idea. And a particular author will have annotated those, and that enables his or her readers to identify really quickly which ones are going to be more or less relevant to them. Another occasion where you see an annotated bibliography is in the research process. In preparing for a longer kind of research paper, writers will often prepare an annotated bibliography to track their thinking and their research. And then they search that anno bib, it's called an anno bib, with someone else so that that respondent can clearly see if the kind of the map of the field is as full or rich as it maybe should be. So there are a variety of purposes. In terms of elements, the elements of an annotated bibliography look different depending on the context in which you're writing and the occasion that kind of inspired it. Sometimes it can be straight summary. Sometimes it can be summary along with kind of evaluation, right, like whether the source does a good job at doing something or fails to mention something, kind of like a critical review. And sometimes there can be another element in there where a writer will write an annotated bibliography and discuss how they see that source as being applicable or potentially useful or valuable, or not, for his or her own writing project. I'm so happy that we are going to be crowdsourcing an annotated bibliography on the cultivation of talent across all the various kinds of expertise that you have become interested in. So I see this as a really valuable potential resource for other people who are interested in thinking about talent and expertise more generally or specifically within particular fields or hobbies. Because you will be providing a whole list of resources that other people can turn to if they want to become more familiar with expertise and talent in general, or if they want to gain expertise in a particular field like window washing, or the history of World War II, or exercise science, whatever it is. Here's an example of an annotated bibliographic entry from our Purdue Owl resource that we often turn to. It's annotating a book by Anne Lamott called, Bird by Bird. And I'm going to show you how this writer of this annotation has chosen to incorporate some of those elements of just summary, of evaluation, of applicability, so that you can make your own choices. Lamott's book offers honest advise on the nature of your writing life, complete with its insecurities and failures. And here we can see that this word, honest, is an example of that kind of evaluative approach to the annotated bibliography. If we took out that honest, then it would just be summary. Taking a humorous approach to the realities of being a writer, the chapters in Lamott's book are wry and anecdotal and offer advice on everything from plot development to jealousy, from perfectionism to struggling with one's own internal critic. In the process, Lamott includes writing exercises designed to be both productive and fun. And here, in blue, I have underlined all of those moments that I think are evaluative. And it's not that one way is better than another, it's just that this illustrates the choice that this writer has made. If we took these words out, it would be summary. Lamott offers sane advice for those struggling with the anxieties of writing, but her main project seems to be offering the reader a reality check regarding writing, publishing and struggling with one's own imperfect humanity in the process. Rather than a practical handbook to producing or publishing, this text is indispensable because of its honest perspective, its down-to-earth humor, and its encouraging approach. This last one maybe you can make an argument that it's not evaluative, it could be just summative, but the other ones, I think, are evaluative. Chapters in this text could easily be included in the curriculum for a writing class. And, here, I will outline in green this sentence because it shows one of those potential areas of applicability, and that's another element of an annotated biography, that might or might not be included. Several of the chapters in Part 1 address the writing process and would serve to generate discussion on students' own drafting and revising processes. And here again is applicability. Some of the writing exercises would also be appropriate for generating classroom writing exercises. Students should find Lamott's style both engaging and enjoyable. And here, I think, is evaluative. So, I'll take one more example of a color, and I'll say that the red is just the summative. And you can see that this writer has chosen to include all the elements of annotated bibliographies.
