Periods, commas, colons, quotes, underlines, and italics - every minor detail has to be just right for a proper citation. Who came up with these things anyway? Somebody had way to much time on their hands!
Actually, I am a very detailed oriented person, so I really don't mind the intricacies of citations. The thing I found to be a little frustrating is that there seems to be several little differences regarding some of the details in the examples we were given - especially in website citations. Even more confusing was that some of the database websites supply their own MLA citation for their articles, but they are more than a little different than the examples in our reading materials. Perhaps the standards aren't so standard afterall!
As for annotations, there seems to be different ideas about those as well. The Research Methods text book lists three things that should be included, the University of Toledo "Writing an Annotated Bibliography Library Resource Guide" lists seven (in addition to the citation). Either way, an annotation is like a mini-report. Unless I'm writing annotations for some sort of public listing, I personally think the list of three is plenty. Even then, I'm not sure I really need to be as thorough as that when making annotations for my own purposes. Sometimes it makes better sense to "rob Peter to pay Paul" when it comes to time management. I prefer to make just enough notations to help me decide if I will want to go back and make use of the resource, and then later spend the extra time making a more thorough assessment if I do end up going back to it. This way, if I never end up using the resource I will not have wasted so much time writing a mini-report on it.
Well, this concludes my "two cents worth" on this subject!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Week 5 - Minor Details
2 comments:
Jana Lu: I think I said this in one of the Announcements but the citations generated by a database are not always correct. I have seen incorrect citations in Britannica Online and in ProQuest. So, while I think it's fine and might be helpful to use those citations as a starting point, you always want to check them, either with the MLA Handbook itself or with a handout created by a library.
Also, I don't know if you read my Announcement from this morning but I do talk in there about different types of annotations with differing levels of criteria and detail. The assignment from this week lays out basically what is required in this class when it comes to writing a good annotation. And, again, while approaches may vary, a "mini-report" is too much; what tends to make them too long is too much summarizing about the content and not enough evaluative information.
Thank you Meryl. I do get the evaluative vs. summary information. I think the difference is that I prefer to screen resources in two stages. First I gather a list of possibilites with very brief notes regarding how they may be useful. Later, if I return to a resource, I glean more detailed information at that point.
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