The eBibliography: Annotated Bibliography in the Age of New and Social Media

Image: creative commons licensed by Moyan Brenn - Flickr

In preparing instructions for my students for completing an annotated bibliography assignment, it's occurred to me that what is evolving here is a different sort of creature than the more traditional bibliographies used in the print-oriented world of academic writing. I might have titled this genre "eBibliography."

How does the "eBibliography" differ from the regular sort?

As those instructions for my students show, this new sort of bibliography does not consist purely of sources from traditional scholarship. It includes a strong social component as well as a focus on new media.

This diversity of sources should help students focus both on developing their ideas, but also sharpening their sense of the relevance and currency of their ideas. By having to list and talk about one's "social graph" and various social networks, this makes students conscious of available avenues for what I call "social proof."

For more on social proof, see "Ignite Your Ideas with Social Proof"

In addition, by looking at and reviewing various new media, students can tap into current discussion and also expert networks.

Overall, this genre of bibliography is also an in-progress genre. It is not a Works Cited page, nor a formally published scholarly bibliography. Far from it. No, this exemplifies the value and importance of publishing process (see "The In-Process Post Genre" and "Burning Redwoods: The Lost Assets of Academia"). The long and short of that is that in the digital age, we are at our best when publicly documenting our processes of discovery and the curation and formation of our ideas. In-process knowledge might even be more important than more formalized varieties of knowledge production.