Preparing a Topic Proposal
and Annotated Bibliography

To help prepare you for writing your 10-page research paper, you will create a topic proposal and annotated bibliography. A topic proposal is a 1-2 paragraph summary of what your paper is going to be about. An annotated bibliography lists the sources that will form the backbone of your research.

Creating a Topic Proposal

A topic proposal is a tentative sketch of what a proposed piece of writing will be and do -- what it's about, what its purposes are, and how it will accomplish those purposes. In technical terms, it needs to be 1-2 paragraphs long, and in polished format for submitting to others (i.e., in essay format). As you will discover below, you will likely go through several drafts in some form or another before handing it in.

Your topic proposal should attempt to address these two general concerns: thesis and strategy. With each there are various kinds of questions you should ask yourself to guide and stimulate your thinking:

• Thesis: What is your central claim in the paper? What is your main point? What questions about your topic is your essay trying to answer?
• Strategy: What are the possible means of supporting your thesis; what is the support for your central claim? What kinds of evidence will show your audience the basis for the conclusions you are offering? What kinds of reasons will explain or justify your conclusions? Will your reasoning seem valid? Do your reasons go far enough to convince your audience? Are you working with assumptions that your readers will accept?

The purpose of a topic proposal is to start your invention process. It is a way to begin thinking about what you're writing and who you're writing to. It's very likely that, as your thinking develops, your sense of thesis and strategy will evolve and perhaps even completely change. No matter the result, the concerns of the topic proposal will remain constant throughout the writing process.

The topic proposal will not be the "final" word on your essay. As implied above, topic proposals continue to change up to the point when an essay is handed in.

Sample Topic Proposals

According to the American Religious Identification Survey (2001), Witchcraft or Wicca is the fastest growing religion in the US with some 750,000 supporters. It is an earth-based religious practice that recognizes the image of Goddess as an essential part of the religion. The propagation of witchcraft may be attributed to the emergence of major writings by its practitioners, some scholarly studies, and reference books. In this essay I will examine the emmergence of Wicca through the writings of some of its most famous proponents, particularly Gerald B. Gardner, Janet and Stewart Farrar, Raymond and Rosemary Buckland, and Starhawke, among others. I will address such questions as: What is the importance of these authors to the movement? What are their principle works, and what have those works contributed to the formation of the Wiccan belief system. How have those beliefs changed over time?

Wicca has made available to women unique opportunities for empowerment. Wicca provides models of ways in which women can develop qualities traditionally denied women, provides teaching and role models within the Wiccan community for women to lean skills, and offers support and affirmation for lesbians as well as heterosexual women within a creative, woman-centered community. In this essay I will show how Wiccan perspectives provide a context within which to address such issues as violence against women, societal change, and environmental destruction.

Creating an Annotated Bibliography

An annotated bibliography is an organized list of sources, such as books, journals, newspapers, magazines, Web Pages, etc., each of which is followed by an annotation or description of each item. Depending on the assignment, the annotated bibliography may serve a number of purposes: to serve as a review of the literature on a particular subject, illustrate the quality of research that you have done, provide examples of the types of sources available, describe other items on a topic that may be of interest to the reader, explore a subject for further research.

Annotations may consist of all or part of the following items, depending on the assignment:

• Describe the content (focus) of the item.
• Describe the usefulness of the item.
• Discuss any limitations that the item may have, e.g. grade level, timeliness etc.
• Describe what audience the item is intended for.
• Evaluate the methods (research) used in the item.
• Evaluate reliability of the item.
• Discuss any conclusions the author(s) may have made.
• Describe your reaction to the item.

The sources you look at should come from a variety of resource types; do not limit yourself to single source types such as Web pages. For example, you may want to include books, newspaper and magazine articles, articles from academic journals, information from computer databases, government publications, and others. There are numerous options. Your goal is to seek useful information from a variety of sources.

Following are a few things to keep in mind as you write:

• Your annotations should be descriptive and evaluative.
• Write clearly and precisely; your audience should have no trouble deciphering your annotations.
• Seek a variety of information and resources.
• Follow MLA style for documenting your sources.

Sample Annotated Bibliography

You write and arrange the bibliographic entries (citations) just as you would any other bibliography or list of works cited. This is usually arranged alphabetically by the first word, which is typically the author's last name. A 1-4 sentence annotation may then immediately follow the bibliographic information, or may skip one or two lines depending on the style manual that is used. Remember to be brief, include only directly significant information, and write in an efficient manner.

Crowther, Patricia. Lid Off the Cauldron. York Beach: Samuel Wiser, 1985.

A readable account of what modern witches actually believe and what they do when they gather together, written by a practicing Gardnerian witch.

Murray, Margaret A. The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. London: Oxford, 1967.

First published in 1921, this work gave a scholarly impetus to the theory that Witchcraft was the survival of an ancient goddess cult. It has since been dismissed by the academic world but enjoys credence in occult circles.

Torrens, R.G. The Inner Teaching of the Golden Dawn. London: Neville Spearman, 1972.

The title is misleading. This is really a kind of student's notebook on The Golden Dawn in which the basic esoteric information in the larger work is compressed and logically arranged for easy comprehension. Very useful for gaining an overview of the Golden Dawn system of magic.