Log 3: Annotated Bibliography
This entry in your research log prompts you to start surveying, gathering, and annotating materials related to your research. For the entry, you should add the following to your log:
- A list of the primary source(s) for your argument with a computer;
- A list of at least ten secondary sources related to your argument (these can be sources related to either your method or your primary sources; ideally, you ultimately account for both);
- For each secondary source, a brief annotation (~10-25 words) summarizing the primary claim of the source;
- For each secondary source, another brief annotation (~10-25 words) summarizing its relevance to your argument with a computer; and
- An electronic copy, in TXT format, of your primary source(s), if in the public domain.
A few important details:
- Your annotations need not assume the form of complete sentences.
- Please use MLA format.
- You can push files in XLS, CSV, TXT, HTML and the like to GitHub. Just drop them into the 507 repo on your local machine and push them as per usual, using
git add --all, git commit -m "message", and git push origin master.
- If you're unsure whether a primary source is in the public domain, then do not push it to GitHub.
- I recommend creating a subdirectory (e.g., "sources") within your 507 repo and dumping your primary sources there. This is handy if you start to accumulate source material. In your log, you can use markdown to point to material within your repo by referencing its filename and location, e.g.,
[primary source](dickens.txt) (if you don't drop it in a subdirectory) or [primary source](sources/dickens.txt) (if you drop in a subdirectory named sources).
- Avoid pushing large files, including video and audio clips beyond a minute in duration or comprising more than 10% of the original, to GitHub.
- As you're gathering materials, I recommend creating a Zotero collection to manage your bibliography and/or using Evernote to save web-based material to your local machine. Here's an example Zotero collection I created for an essay I recently wrote, if only to give you a sense of what Zotero does and how. Of note, you can also use Zotero to output your bibliography, references, or works cited in whatever format you need (e.g., MLA, Chicago, APA).
- If you have a data model for your argument (e.g., a spreadsheet containing structured data from or about your primary sources), then feel free to include that model in your repo, too.
- Your sources do not need to be digital or online. They can be objects you have on hand, even if you do not ultimately digitize them.
- Here are a few domains that might pique your interest: Canadiana, Internet Archive, Digital Public Library of America, Hathi Trust, and Europeana.
As you proceed, please don't hesitate to get in touch with questions or concerns. I imagine there are numerous issues and concerns that I either neglected or did not directly address here.