PAPER #3—ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY AND AUTOETHNOGRAPHY
Pecha Kucha Presentations: March 1, 2, 5
Annotated Bibliography: March 8
Rough Draft : March 14
Autoethnography : March 19
Throughout the quarter, we have been examining the content of other people’s personal
archives. You will now focus on your own archive, gathering information about and
analyzing your own culture or subculture.
The Annotated Bibliography will allow you to gather and comment on outside sources
related to your subculture. These sources will include both library sources (such as
reference books and articles from the library database) and, potentially, interviews and
other sources that draw on your personal archive. You must have 8 sources for the
Annotated Bibliography, but the final paper only needs to employ 6 of these sources.
Expectations:
Your final essay will be 6-7 pages, double-spaced, in 12-point Times New Roman font. It
will be formatted according to MLA guidelines and include a “Works Cited” page at the end.
In this paper, you will also be required to incorporate at least 6 sources that help you to
address and expand the context of your subculture. At least one of these sources must be
from a scholarly or peer-reviewed journal and at least one of them should be a
multimedia source. (Please note that you will include 8 sources in your Annotated
Bibliography, but you do not need to use all of these in your final paper.)
What is Autoethnography?
• Autoethnograhy is a recognized qualitative social research method where the researcher
documents a group by recording his or her own individual experience. It foregrounds
experience and story as a meaning-making enterprise.
• Autoethnographic essays involve thinking critically and writing about a specific “culture”
or “subculture” that you, the writer, have experienced or belonged to in your life. Culture
can be identified as the way of life of an entire society. A subculture is a group of people
who would identify themselves as a group with common beliefs, actions, and goals.
Assignment
For this essay, you will provide an analysis of the rituals, hierarchies, language practices,
and significant artifacts of your subculture. You may want to begin with one piece of
evidence from your personal archive (such as a photo, a significant quotation, a letter, a
ticket stub, etc.) as a way into your paper or as a focal point.
In this paper, you will still be moving continually between claims and evidence— between
concrete, vivid details of experience and you answer to the “So what” question—but the
evidence will come from your personal experience.
Secondly, you will research an aspect of (sub)culture that relates very closely to the
personal experiences that you describe. Therefore, your personal stories and your research
should compliment (or complicate) each other; your research may help you to expand your
knowledge of your culture, but your experiences may also challenge scholarly accounts of
that culture.
Your thesis statement will synthesize, or bring together, the two parts of your paper—your
research and your personal experience.
Prewriting:
You may want to pay particular attention to the power structures, artifacts, language
practices, and rituals that are significant to the group that you are exploring. These
categories will allow you to remain specific and concrete, even as you perform your
analysis:
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What kinds of rituals are typical of this group? What kinds of traditions or patterns
of behavior help to link them together? In what ways do these rituals influence or
exemplify the group’s beliefs or values?
What kinds of artifacts —tools, equipment, or clothing—do people in this group
use? What are the practical functions or roles of these artifacts? How do members
use them? What symbolic significance do the artifacts hold?
What are the language practices of this group? What special terms, jargon, or codes
do they use to communicate with each other? What makes this use of language
significant? What kinds of non-verbal communication do people in this
culture/subculture use? How does this communication work? How does the group
use written language? What work does writing do for members of the subculture?
WRITING AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
An annotated bibliography is a list of sources in which each citation is followed by a short
summary and evaluation. The Annotated Bibliography has two functions:
 It provides people in a particular field with access to significant and current
information about relevant sources.
 It provides you with the opportunity to become familiar with a particular area of
study.
Your annotated bibliography will include at least 8 sources related to your (sub)culture. Of
these sources,
 4 must be print sources (includes books, magazines, and articles from library
databases)
 1 must be peer-reviewed
 1 must be a multimedia source
Sources such as interviews and other articles of your personal archive are encouraged.
Getting Started
 Record full bibliographic details, including author’s name, title of publication,
publisher’s name, year and place of publication, and if appropriate, page numbers.
Use MLA style throughout.
 Write the annotation as a short summary of the contents of each text (3-5
sentences) followed by a brief response to /critique of the source (3-5 sentences).
Writing the summary
To write an effective summary for an annotation you need to read for the main ideas and
write them clearly and concisely in your own words. You can also add quotations to the
summary if those quotations make it more effective. If you do add quotations, make sure to
use the “quote sandwich”; no paragraph should begin or end with a quotation. Ask yourself
the following questions to focus on the source’s main ideas:
 What is the primary goal or argument of this source?
 What ideas and evidence are used to support this point?
Writing the critique/response
The critique is your critical response to the item you have read, and it comes after the
summary. To write an effective critique you need to draw on all your extended knowledge
about the topic by asking yourself questions like
 What does it contribute to my understanding of the topic?
 What are this source’s research methods and criteria? What are the author’s
credentials, and are they convincing?
 What are the limitations for this study or argument? What are its strengths?
 Will this source be helpful to me when I write this paper? Why? Why not?