Bibliographic Essay
The formal process of the Area Exam involves circulating the first list to your committee, with a paragraph explaining the rationale of the list. The committee is invited to provide comment or suggestions for readings. Then you and I finalize the list.
The first exam is written, and I prefer that it be a bibliographic essay. The BE is a review-article, looking for any patterns that emerge from a collection of readings. As you noted, the form lends itself to the cumulative process of research reading.
Method
- Take notes on an item (book, essay, film, Website etc).
- Write the entry for this item immediately upon finishing the notes. The entry should be no more than 2pp, and has 2 parts: a) thumbnail description of what the item does in its own terms; b) what interests you about the item.
- Repeat for each item on your list.
- Write a brief introduction for the completed list, explaining the rationale (again), plus an overview grouping the items into whatever sets you noticed, based on some shared feature(s). Provide a conclusion that summarizes the possible direction(s) for further work are implied by the list.
- Get my feedback before circulating the completed BE to the committee.
- If you like you may send me a draft of your first entry or two, to check on the form.