ENGLISH BC3997x, sec. 4
Annotated Bibliography Assignment

As a second step in the process of researching and writing your thesis, prepare an annotated preliminary bibliography. This should include a list of texts and/or other materials that you plan to consult, as well as brief comments about how or why you imagine that each item will be useful to you. (You may include information about how each text came to your attention, for example, via a footnote in another text or through an MLA search). Also, note the library location (i.e. which library and call number) of each item. (It’s important to pay attention to this detail early, so that you have time to track down books that are not on the shelves or that require interlibrary loans.)

This first stage of your research should include preliminary searches of CLIO+, the card catalogue (for materials pre-CLIO+), and the MLA bibliography on-line. The bibliography that you hand in on Friday should include five to ten items drawn from these preliminary searches. Among those items should be at least one nineteenth-century text, at least one scholarly book, and at least one journal article.

Once you've covered this preliminary ground, you may want to explore other avenues, including nineteenth-century periodical literature, image collections available in the Columbia library system and over the web (see my list of useful  resources in American literature and culture and the more specific guidelines on Researching Nineteenth-century American Women Writers for ideas), and other New York collections.

You may also be interested in using Endnote software to manage your research materials.  See http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/help/howto/endnote/ for information and for a free software download.

DUE: Friday October 17 at noon in my mailbox in Barnard 417