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Annotated Bibliography - FAQ

Take a look at the research hints before reading through these FAQ. You’ll find lots of answers over there from about 10 years of students who have already taken 101 and gotten through the Annotated Bibliography.

  • About how long do you recommend an article should be?
    • 16-25pp
    • If it's under 16 pages, it's not allowed; this means that the text of the article is 16 pages, not including the bibliography or works cited
  • I believe that there are critical models, other than those on our syllabus, are those critical models off limits? Or should we just stick to the models that we have on the syllabus? If there are others, is imperialism one of them?
    • Stick to the models on our syllabus. (We don't cover Reader Response; leave those off.)
  • If we have questions about what critical models are being used in the journals we choose, how many times is acceptable to come to you for help?
    • My office hours are always open to anyone who wants to stop by (no appointment necessary). Come with something to say about the article — a guess, or a supposition, anything. We’ll talk about the article and the model, but in the end, you’ll have to decide about the critical model. (In other words, don’t come to me and say “what’s the critical model here?” That’s part of your job in this assignment.)
  • We are only allowed to use articles that do not go back more than 10 years so my question is, what is an effective way to access articles on Heart of Darkness that were written during this time frame?
  • From past classes, I thought an annotated bibliography was the buildup to a full-fledged paper. Is this true? Does there need to be a cohesive theme between the articles—a point we are trying to prove? Or is this purely for research purposes and the articles we find do not need to have a theme or central idea that they all tie back to?
    • The goal of this assignment is research-oriented, for starters. Another goal is to help you understand, analyze, and assess literary criticism and theory as it has been written by professionals. No cohesive theme among the articles is necessary. In fact, each article represents a different kind of critical model.
  • When we write our own personal response to the article, is it more of a critique/criticism of the article or a demonstration of how we apply it? (Or either/both?)
    • Your response is a critique of the use of the theory/critical model.
    • Stay away from the "I feel/think/believe" reactions.
  • Do all the sources have to be good sources or should there be a couple that were not helpful with an explanation of why?
    • You may certainly use an article that does not adequately use the critical model. Reserve that assessment for the final section of the entry.
  • How do I know if chapters in a book are  considered articles? I found a book which has chapters written by different authors and each of these chapters ‘stand alone’ from the others.
    • That’s fine. That kind of book is called a collected edition of articles. They need to have been peer reviewed. If you can’t tell, bring the book to me for help.
  • Has anyone perfected finding Structuralist articles? I’ve been having a rough time finding one from the past ten years.
  • In some of the essays and books I noticed that several have more than one critical argument. My question is, do I exclude those in my Annotated Bibliography or can I use them as long as I only remark upon one of the critical modes used?
    • Focus on only one critical model in the article. You may acknowledge that others are used, though.
  • If an article or book on literary criticism and Heart of Darkness happens to include other literary works as examples, or references would I still be able to use that as a source?
    • Yes.
  • On the assignment description it says we need to include the articles in the finished annotated bib assignment. To be clear, we are required to include complete copies of each article?
    • Yes. You'll attach all articles as PDFs in a section here on Canvas. This will allow me to read the articles.
  • When I search “Heart of Darkness Conrad” in the databases, I get a ton of hits. What is a good way to narrow down my search, since I am not looking for a particular topic (and since I do not necessarily want to search for the specific critical models — the authors are not going to be giving them to us)?