Annotated Bibliography
The objective of this assignment is to create a record of readings for a course or for a writing
project. By creating such a record, you have a means to refer back to what you’ve read and
learned, as well as what is valuable (or maybe not so valuable) about a particular reading.
As you move through your graduate studies, it is highly useful to be able to refer to your
annotated bibliography as a reference source for future papers or projects. And, it can serve as an
aid for those works you want to revisit in the future either to read again or to consult for
particular purposes.
It can also serve you in your future career. Much of what you read in this course can become part
of your personal library of resources to access again as needed. An annotated bibliography aids
in retrieving material that can be of use because it will remind you what a particular reading is
about and where you can find it again.
For this assignment, choose 10 readings done in conjunction with this course. At least six
readings should be assigned, required readings from our course. The remaining four can be other
articles or books read that relate to arts and cultural policy. They should be scholarly, researched
books and articles. From these readings, create an annotated bibliography. At minimum, each
annotation should include:
• Full citation of the work including title, author, and publication information.
• One-or-two paragraph analytically-oriented summary of the work. (Rather than just a
summary, provide information on the work’s usefulness for your research or for the
field.)
• In the summary, make sure to include the main claim or thesis, supporting evidence,
methods used, theoretical framework, logical structure of the argumentation, and
conclusions drawn.
• Note that with some books and articles, supporting evidence may be in the form of
examples rather than researched evidence. So, for these works, concentrate on the logical
structure of the argument.
• Conclude each annotation with a statement on how you might use the work in the future.
Important note: Many students approaching this assignment for the first time do not do a good
job. They assume that they are supposed to summarize the reading—as one might do in a book
report—and then make a brief statement about whether the reading is useful for research or not.
DO NOT DO THE ASSIGNMENT THIS WAY!
Instead, your approach is to analyze the reading for its merits. Here’s an analogy that might be
useful to think about how to approach this assignment and how you should write the document.
Pretend you are hired for a lawyer to interview potential witnesses for a trial. As a big, important
lawyer, she doesn’t have time to interview the witness herself. So, she is paying you a lot of
money to do this and to tell her whether the person you interview would be a good witness for
her client. Since she is paying you a lot of money, she expects you to do a good job and make a
recommendation she can count on.
She will want to know:
• What will the witness say?
• Is he reliable?
• Will he help my client?
• Are there gaps in his testimony that might cause a problem for the lawyer’s client?
• What examples can you give that illustrate the above to the lawyer’s satisfaction?
• And, no doubt, the answers to other questions, as well.
In a similar fashion, you are “interviewing” the things you’ve read. The scholarly term we use is
“interrogate.” You are interrogating the readings to discover why they are useful.
Using the guidelines for this assignment and the other materials provided on writing an annotated
bibliography, compile an analytical report of the things you’ve read. Articulate your findings in a
way that someone who has not read the same books and articles could still appreciate the
readings and their merits.
What, in particular—and specifically— is useful or not useful? Give examples from the readings
so someone reading your document can better appreciate what you are stating. Are there things
the author didn’t include that would have increased the book’s or article’s merits? What are those
things? Why should they be included? Does the author make assumptions that are unwarranted?
What are they? Is the reading useful for future research? If yes, in what way? If not, why not?
Answering these questions requires thought and analysis on your part. Remember in our analogy
above, you’re being paid a lot of money to provide an excellent assessment. (In the case of our
assignment, you will get a really high grade if you do well.) You are not voicing your opinion.
You are providing sound judgment based on your reasoned assessment of the material you read.
Grading for this assignment will be based on the above criteria.
The length of the assignment will depend on what you write. As a loose guideline, expect to
write between one-third of a page and one-half of a page for each entry.
Your document should be in Microsoft Word or similar word-processing software.
Upon completion of the assignment, upload it for grading.
Book Lists
1. Public Policy: Politics, Analysis, and Alternatives
Michael E. Kraft, Scott R. Furlong
CQ Press, Oct 20, 2014 – Political Science
2. What Art Is Like: In Constant Reference to the Alice Books
Miguel Tamen
Harvard University Press, Oct 30, 2012
3. Kulturmanagement konkret 2011
Gesa Birnkraut, Karin Wolf
BoD – Books on Demand, Mar 7, 2012
4. The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users
Guy Kawasaki, Peg Fitzpatrick
Penguin, Dec 4, 2014
5. The Arts and Public Policy in the United States
American Assembly January 1, 1984
The American Assembly
6. Cultural Policy and Cultural Diversity: Mapping the Policy Domain
Tony Bennett January 1, 2001
Council of Europe