How to Write an Annotation

Introduction

An annotated bibliography needs annotations for each item. The annotation needs to offer the following:

  1.  a brief summary of the research question
  2. a brief summary of the answering thesis
  3.  an indication of the texts discussed and/or object(s) of inquiry
  4. an indication of the methodology (if it’s not obvious from the previous three)

Instructions for Annotating Digital Tools

  1. Say what it is. (You’ll probably default to a sentence fragment beginning with a noun.)
  2. State what it contains (digital surrogates, bibliographical references, definitions, remediated items from other sources, images, digital objects, full-text secondary sources, annotations, video and items in other media, scripts, book reviews, encyclopedia-style entries, id numbers [ISBN, DOI, other ids], metadata).
  3. Be clear about the scope of the tool (temporal, personnel, geographic).
  4. If possible, state what research questions it enables.

Examples

Examples are all taken from the World Shakespeare Bibliography Online.

Books

Articles

Examines the use of Shakespearean passages in seventeenth century commonplace books. Focuses on the commonplace books of James Whitehall and Abraham Wright as examples of clergy members who commonplaced from Shakespeare’s works. Argues that “commonplacing readers demand that we consider Shakespeare’s works as mutable and, above all, modular.” [For WSB bbbe1223.]

Explores how four Shakespearean performance institutions (Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare’s Globe, and Stratford Festival of Canada) use social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to reach their audiences. Argues that using social media platforms allows for more audience interaction adding to the “larger narratives regarding the cultural value of Shakespeare and Shakespeare performance.” [For WSB bbbg385.]

Focuses on the depiction of Ophelia in stagings of Hamlet to “trouble critics’ oft-repeated characterization of performance as a disappearing act, something so local and evanescent that it can only be handled in retrospect” and “identify some of the limitations of the idea of performance as evanescence and attempt to press beyond them.” [For WSB bbbc312.]

Digital Projects

World Shakespeare Bibliography Online. A rebuild of the World Shakespeare Bibliography (WSB), which continues to be updated quarterly. Includes new user interface, upgraded submission system, expanded search and browse functionality, and expanded cross-references. As of July 2018, the WSB included over 124,200 entries and over one million reviews.

Arden Shakespeare CD-ROM. Includes the texts, introductions, notes, and appendixes from the Arden Shakespeare editions; facsimiles of each page of the First Folio and selected pages of quartos; portions of Geoffrey Bullough’s Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare; David Bevington’s Shakespeare; E. A. Abbott, A Shakespearian Grammar; Robert D. Eagleson’s revision of C. T. Onions’s A Shakespeare Glossary; Eric Partridge’s Shakespeare’s Bawdy; and illustrations.

Shakespeare Census. “Attempts to locate and describe all extant copies of all editions of Shakespeare’s works through 1700, excluding the folios. Includes Shakespearean apocrypha “attributed to Shakespeare in print during the period, but not those attributed to him only by modern scholarship”; excludes Restoration adaptations.

 

** Note that my enumerative bibliography assignments usually require that you annotate only a few of the items. If you were to publish your annotated bibliography, you would need to provide an annotation for each item.**