Overview
MacFarlane, Charles: Constantinople in 1828: A Residence of Sixteen Months in the Turkish Capital and Provinces; with an Account of the Present State of the Naval and Military Power, and of the Resource of the Ottoman Empire. This firsthand account provides insights into Istanbul’s military, political, and economic conditions during the early 19th century.
I could only find this primary source online: https://archive.org/details/Travel1828MacFarlane/page/n11/mode/2up
2. Russell, Alexander, and Patrick Russell: The Natural History of Aleppo. Though focused on Aleppo, this source includes valuable comparisons with Istanbul, offering context on the Ottoman Empire’s urban landscape.
Secondary Sources:
Edhem, Eldem, Daniel Goffman, and Bruce Masters: The Ottoman City Between East and West: Aleppo, Izmir, and Istanbul (Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 135-206. This source provides a comprehensive analysis of Istanbul’s evolution as an Ottoman city.
- Fariba Zarinabaf “Intercommunal Life in Istanbul During the Eighteenth Century” in Review of Middle East Studies, Summer 2012, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Summer 2012), pp. 79-85
Feyzi Baban: The Past Is a Different City: Istanbul, Memoirs, and Multiculturalism in Istanbul: Living with Difference in a Global City (Chapter Three). This chapter examines Istanbul’s multicultural past, offering a nuanced view of how diverse communities contributed to its development.
Alongside these sources, I have provided a reaction paper regarding one of the primary sources (The Natural History of Aleppo) to further help with the response being accurate to my previous work.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DIRECTIONS:
Please write an annotated bibliography of the sources you will be using for your final essay. The list of sources should include both primary and secondary sources.
Include Proper citation information for each source using the Chicago style. There should be two paragraphs per source (like 5 or more sentences per paragraph please) the more detailed the better. The two paragraphs are one summarizing the source and the other evaluating the source.
These are the specifics of what my teacher wants us to include about each source, so please make sure to address these in the paragraphs.
Source Summary: The first part of your entry will summarize the source. Aim not to dazzle your professor with extensive detail, but to state briefly the topic and main argument of your source. If you are annotating a secondary source, in addition to summarizing the main idea, you will want to give information about how the source is organized, the main types of evidence the author relies on, and how the author makes his or her argument. If you are annotating a primary source, in addition to the main idea, explain the type of source (e.g. a letter, newspaper, census report, etc.), identify the author (include the author’s position and other information to help the reader understand the writer’s perspective and why s/he was in a position to create the source), and state the author’s intended audience.
Source Evaluation: Your source evaluation explains how the source contributes to a particular topic. What does the source do for your argument? Is it one of the key pieces of evidence supporting your case? Does it offer crucial background information? Does it present a counterpoint to your argument that you need to address? In discussion of the source itself, be sure to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the source. Did you find the argument persuasive? If so, explain what made the argument work well. Were you unconvinced by some of the author’s claims? If so, explain why. You will also want to put the source into the context of the field as a whole. What does this source teach us that we did not know before? Is it filling in a particular gap in the field? Is it refuting a long-held assumption? Authors will often explain how they understand the contribution of their work, so begin by looking in the introduction for such information.
These are additional directions my teacher included to further act as a guide to properly annotate the sources:
How to write the annotated bibliography
Once you have identified your key sources, the next step is to put into writing the main argument of each source. To help you glean the author’s argument, take a step back and look at the big picture. What problem is this author trying to address? What holes in our knowledge does the writer intend to fill? If you had to describe this source to someone who had never read it, what would you say? If you are having trouble capturing the main idea, reread the author’s introduction and conclusion. In those sections, the author is likely to lay out in detail the larger argument
Now that you know the main argument of the source, the next step is to figure out how successfully the author supported the argument. Look back through the source and see exactly what evidence the author used to make his or her case. Is there enough evidence? Do you agree with how the author interpreted the evidence? In this step, you will also want to put this source into conversation with other sources. Ask how this source fits in with the other ones you have read. Does it agree with them? Disagree? Did you find some sources more convincing than others? If so, why?