• Value: 15%
• Length: 1500 words (4 250-word annotations + 1 500-word literature review)
• Due date: Monday, November 2, 2015

For this assignment, you will compile a short bibliography of 4 credible and authoritative critical sources on a text and/or topic from the course and write a 250-word summary/annotation for each. You will also write a short literature review in which you consider the general trends and assumptions that these articles share.

One goal of this assignment is to help you begin the research on your final essay. The topic is up to you. However, you must write on at least one of the texts that we are covering in class this term. Your essay should also reflect in some capacity on the issues and themes we have been exploring in class. Do not feel that you have to know precise what your topic or thesis will be before you start your research. You should allow your research into the essays and chapters that have already been written on your text or topic to guide your thinking toward a focused thesis. Here are some guidelines for how to locate the articles:

• All 4 essays you choose should all be on a similar or related topic and not on four disparate topics that just happen to come up in relation to a certain author or text.
• Most of the articles should be recent published within the last 25 years, since 1990. If there is a “key” article published before that date, and to which all the others refer, you may use that one as well.
• You do not have to read entire books for this essay; however, you may wish to consult a chapter from a recent book on the text that you are pursuing. Remember that some book chapters are published in journals or collections before they appear in book-form.
• If you are having trouble locating articles on a similar topic by way of the MLA or other bibliography, do not despair. The next step is to find one, good recent article on a topic and then READ THE NOTES (Endnotes or Footnotes). There WILL be references to other articles on similar topics there. Locate them and, if necessary, read their notes too.
• You may find that you have to read more than 4 articles to find the ones that work for your research. That’s fine – in fact, it’s expected.

Once you have located, read, and chosen your four articles, you will compose an annotated bibliography for them. An annotation is a short, compressed version of the summary you wrote in the previous assignment. It explains the main claim or thesis and reviews the evidence, assumptions, and authorities that support that claim. It does not respond to the essay, but it might explain how it fits into a larger conversation.

The last stage in this assignment is to produce a literature review for your topic. This is a 500 word mini-essay in which you assess how recent work on your topic has been developing, how various authors writing on that topic have approached it, what similarities and differences exist between them, and how the general conversation is developing. The lit review will be the last part of this assignment to be written, but it will appear FIRST when you submit. The bibliographies will be graded on the basis of the quality and relevance of the essays you find and on the clarity of your annotations. I cannot read every essay you find, but will consult them if your annotation is unclear – so clarity and specificity matter.