That annotated bibliography took me forever!

This is a reflection on the annotated bibliography we turned in last Thursday.

I don't know about you guys, but it took me a really long time before I could put anything down on paper as I was writing my annotated bibliography. After hours of reading a variety of sources, I realized that it was so hard to write because I didn't have any specific goals; the revised research question I had formed was still too broad: How did the law shape the lives of American women in the 19th century. So I referred back to the research proposal I got back from Natalia. One of the comments she gave was to refer back to Sweet Cicely to identify specific laws mentioned in the book. I took a step back and tried to come up with several laws that I could do research on to produce a substantial 8-10 page research paper. After all those hours of writer's block, I wrote the following on top of my draft: How did laws regarding ownership of property, possession of alcohol, and domestic abuse affect American women in the 19th century? After I wrote that question down, my annotated bibliography started to take shape.

In my research so far, I was not able to find any specific laws regarding those three aspects of woman life in the 19th century. I started to panic that maybe I would need an entirely new research proposal! But what I did find were testimonials and personal accounts of prominent women figure in the 19th century, such as Elizabeth Stanton, that covered these issues. I was relieved that I did not waste all these hours reading sources to write my bibliography. Hopefully I will be able to find more useful sources in the following weeks.