Annotated bibliography

This bibliography is a list of reading completed or planned. Annotations of the readings should indicate the relevance of the article or book chapter to your topic. The goals in preparing an annotated bibliography are:

1. for you to take stock of the significance of the reading in light of your current project definition and priorities;
2. to provide a basis for your advisors and other readers to help you identify holes and any mismatch between what you are reading and your Governing Question;
3. compose sentences that may find its way into your writing; and
4. have your citations already typed in (use the format/citation style you intend to use for your final report).

For a bibliography, relationship to the (evolving) focus of your project is more important than quantity. There is no need to pack or pad the bibliography with zillions of references uncovered in your searches. Instead, use the compilation of a bibliography to stimulate the process of clarifying whether and in what ways an article is relevant to your project (see Active Digestion). Omit readings that no longer relate to the current direction of your project.

Because your topic might have changed or should be more concise by the time you submit this bibliography, take stock of that and begin with a revised single-paragraph overview of the current topic and Governing Question. Writing a tighter overview statement will also help to expose changes, gaps, and ambiguities. Comments by others on your initial statement also help, provided you ignore comments rendered irrelevant by changes in your direction.

(When you include a bibliography in the final report, there is no need to include annotations or any articles not cited in the report.)

(see Phase B)