Janet Akselrud
Eng 151 – 19582
Professor Seecharan
21 April 2020
Annotated Bibliography Process
So much has happened since we started the annotated bibliography that I have lost sight of the beginning. Now, I would rather forget how much time I spent doing everything wrong than recount the experience. I’m pretty sure I was confident at first, confident in my choice of topic, confident in my ability to use databases, and confident in my ability to analyze the sources. Somehow, I made too many turns in what could have been an otherwise straight path and writing an annotated bibliography proved to be the most frustrating assignment of my whole college career.
My first mistake was the database I chose. Instead of searching everything, I searched the Academic Search Complete Database, which omits books from their selection. I managed to find relevant articles but I dove too deep when investigating their credibility. I found many inconsistencies from references that didn’t exist, to unqualified authors. My time was wasted reading articles that I had to throw out even before the draft annotated bibliography. I thought to start over, closed all my tabs and started a new search, putting my previous sources off to the side but not too far away,
My second mistake was reading, writing, and thinking the word “ecotourism” so many times that it lost meaning. There were days I went to bed with the word “ecotourism” on loop in my thoughts, as if some idea would appear by repeating it over and over. I didn’t realize I had stopped understanding what I was arguing and subsequently, what sources I was looking for. However, part of my topic is to discuss the lack of an agreed upon definition for “ecotourism” between stakeholders. If I settled on a definition that would sooner prove my misunderstanding. So I continued searching sources with no definition in mind.
Feeling stuck when researching any author I found and, for unrelated purposes, reading articles about the coronavirus lockdown effect on animals, I debated changing my topic. The articles read so smoothly and didn’t need to be translated from academic language, it seemed like a promising route. It was a miracle when my friend purposely argued with me, contradicting my every point, until I managed to blurt out what I was researching and what it was meant to say. I wanted to prove that international certification, or a market campaign encouraging tourists to be on the lookout for certifications that do exist needed to hold ecotourism companies accountable for sustainable practices.The outline I vaguely thought about before, made sense the second I physically saw the sections of successful ecotourism and misused ecotourism in swapped places. Grabbing a pen and paper to write out an outline that had an end goal, I was in shock at how long my confusion had gone on. That was two days ago.
Since then, everything flowed relatively smoother. I ripped the source translated from romanian that contradicted itself into pieces, I threw the other hindering sources to the floor and away from my sight. This was the last time I was going to start over. I used the right database, I knew what I was looking for, and I completed my first trustworthy annotation. It was a proud moment. I finished 2.9 annotations and went to sleep, one day before the due date.
After attending calculus class, fixing my fall schedule, preparing a presentation for a meeting which was supposed to be held at 4:00pm, and taking a walk with my mom to air out my brain, an exhausted me finally sat down to work on the bibliography. There were several stages of insanity. Stage one, 11:31pm, I was writing about Mattew Clark’s Kurt Holle’s Ecolodge article thinking it was Abigail Rome’s Ecotourism in the Amazon article. Clark’s article needed to be ripped up for peace. At 11:39pm, I got caffeinated tea. Stage two, 11:44pm, I laid on the floor in awe of the background music booming from my grandparents television. Half an hour later I internally argued with the sound of an ominous organ not allowing it to make my bibliography a horror movie. My thoughts at 12:02 “Why didn’t I just do this before? Well, I mean I did it before I just did it wrong like a million times. Why couldn’t I do this right, before? I mean, well, hahaha, I am doing it right before, right before the due date.” The stages got worse as I realized I needed Clark Kent’s article in my bibliography. All in all, I am never forcing myself to stay awake for an assignment ever again. And for all assignments moving forward, I’m going to take an hour planning out what I think will work and figuring out how it won’t before I start.
