ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
To begin, select a prompt from the list found on page 3 of this document.
Then, conduct research to find scholarly sources providing information about this prompt.
Next, properly document each source with a citation followed by an entry evaluating the source and explaining how it helps answer your prompt.
This entry calls for an argument about how a source helps answer your prompt – not just a description of that source. Last, upload a DOC, DOCX, RTF, or ODT file to “Assignments.”
REQUIREMENTS
Five citations from acceptable scholarly sources must provide all the correct publication information.
Each citation is followed by a single-spaced annotated entry of at least 300 words.
Each entry should evaluate the source and describe how that sources helps answer your prompt.
No direct quotations are allowed.
ACCETABLE SCHOLARLY SOURCES
It must exist somewhere as a published book or be an article within an academic journal.
It must bear an author or editor’s name.
It must provide either a title, name of a publishing house, and date of publication [or] a title, journal title and number, and date of publication.
UNACCEPTABLE SOURCES
Websites (e.g., academic blogs, authorless database articles, university web pages, general information web pages, Wikipedia, etc.…).
Encyclopedias, textbooks, or non-print sources
ELECTRONIC SOURCES
Scholarly sources can be found on online. TTC’ library provides access to databases with eBooks and journals. Links are located at the bottom of our class “Course Announcements” page under “User Links.” If you log onto these databases, you will need your TTC ID#, found on TTC Express under the “TTC for Credit Students” Academic Profile “My Profile” tabs.
GRAMMAR & STYLE
Active Voice: Strong formal writing uses active voice, in which the subject performs the action.
Active: Egyptians believed Osiris judged the dead.
Passive: It was believed that the dead were judged.
First Person: Formal writing avoids using first person pronouns (“I” or “me”).
Verb Tense: write in the past tense when referring to past events, people, and societies:
Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to a church door in Wittenberg.
The exception to this rule is when referring to an author’s assertions in the context of their writings:
Meyer argues that eighteenth-century capitalists like Adam Smith promoted social stability.
PLAGIARISM
To avoid failing this assignment, do not copy any portion of your work from any source. Using a previously written work is plagiarism. Changing a few words does not make a passage your own. See tutorial “How to Prevent Plagiarism” in “User Links.” Students cannot earn a grade for their Annotated Biography unless they upload their work to “Assignments,” at which time Turnitin ® software automatically checks the work for plagiarism.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY PROMPTS
How would you characterize the relationship between kings and priests in Sumer?
What does the Epic of Gilgamesh tell us about Mesopotamian culture?
What were the effects of the Indo-Europeans on the Near East?
What role did military technology play in the rise and fall of ancient Near East empires?
Why do some scholars consider the Old Kingdom a highpoint of Egyptian civilization?
What was the relationship between the pharaoh and Egyptian religion?
What was the relationship between Rabbinical Judaism and the exile in Babylon?
Why do scholars suggest Zoroastrianism and influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam?
Why did Akhenaton’s attempted reforms of Egyptian religion failure?
What were the causes of the Persian Wars?
How realistic was Homer’s depiction of Mycenaean history?
How was the Hellenistic world multi-cultural?
What was the Roman Empire’s relationship to the peoples within its borders?
Explain the Roman opposition to Jesus and his early followers.
What was the relationship between paganism and the Roman state?
What set of circumstance led to the division of the Roman Empire into two parts?
How can we account for the scope and speed of Arab conquests?
What were the consequences of the Islamic translation of Greek and Persian literature?
What role did monasteries play in medieval society?
Why did medieval Christians view clerical reform as so vital to their society?
What were the forces that brought the Abbasid Dynasty into power?
How did northern Europe differ from southern Europe in the Late Middle Ages?
How did medieval Christians interpret the Black Death?
What was Humanism’s relationship to the Renaissance?
Why did Luther’s break with Rome succeed when so many similar movements had failed?
What was the relationship between Christianity and the Age of Exploration?
What was the relationship between the Protestant Reformation and witch-hunting?
SAMPLE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRY
Based on the hypothetical prompt, “In what context did which hunting occur in Early Modern England?”
Macfarlane, Alan D. J. Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1970.
This work concentrates on witchcraft prosecutions in Essex County, England, between 1560 and 1680. Macfarlane provides numerous statistics from ecclesiastical and secular trials on the gender, age and social status of the accused. He discusses the relationships of the accused to their accusers and attempts to explain the motivations which spurred neighbors to press charges against one another. He proceeds to list reasons for the decline of witch trials in Essex by the middle of the seventeenth century. The alleged witchcraft in this part of England was considerably less colorful and more practical than elsewhere in continental Europe. They were, in fact, accused of killing, attempting to injure people and destroy property, invoking evil spirits, seeking out treasures and lost items with the aid of magic, and various methods of fortune telling.
It appears that the major factors in determining the guilt or innocence of an Essex which were their character, drinking habits, and general reputation. Concerning the root causes for prosecution, he dismisses as unproven untrue or problematic causes such as destitution, illness, or religious fervor. Instead, Macfarlane suggests that the Essex witch trials responded to how the elderly strained economic resources and caused friction between themselves and younger families, keenly felt in Tudor and Stuart England, where ideals of charity were beginning to change. Also, Macfarlane suggests that tensions between neighbors, such as being refused some charity, played a role. Accusing someone of witchcraft was a way to divert guilt from oneself onto someone else.
