Annotated Bibliography
250 points. 25% of your overall grade
Topic: 10 points
Outline: 20 pts (completion grade)
Rough draft: 30 pts (completion grade)
Final draft: 140 pts
Personal Reflection Essay: 50 pts
Purpose
Collect, organize, critique, and evaluate a body of research about a specific topic.
Understand the broader context of research as a conversation where sources build on each other.
Understand the ways you participate in this scholarly conversation.
Overview
An annotated bibliography is a research tool used to collect relevant and useful resources on a specific topic. They consist of citations for several resources, along with summaries, critiques, and critical evaluations. The idea is to have a quick reference to resources that useful for ongoing research.
Your annotated bibliography will include at least 7 sources, although you can always include more. These sources should be varied (scholarly articles, videos, news, websites, images, books, etc.). At least 3 of the sources should come from the libraryresources, and your other sources will depend on your topic.
Please note: you are NOT actually required to write an essay using these sources.
Topic
Submit a short paragraph describing your topic and why it interests you. I encourage creative topics! In the past, I’ve had students write about true crime, cults, video game design, cheerleading injuries, alternative medicine, and how snakes are represented in folktales.
Your topic should be specific. “Athletes” is too broad, but “the physical effects of steroids on athletes” is a good topic. “Cheese” is too broad, but “the history of cheese making in Italy” is a good topic. Let me know if you need help narrowing your topic.
Outline
Include at least one source, your research question, and thesis statement. Use the draft components to types of sources, ways to evaluate them, and the layout of your Annotated Bibliography. Please bring your outline to class.
Rough Draft
Please bring your rough draft to class. Complete at least half of your rough draft to get the full completion points, although the more you do for the rough draft, the easier your final draft will be.
Final Draft Components
Research Question: Based on the topic you selected, you will narrow down your research interest and develop a research question you want to answer. (7 points)
Thesis Statement: You will turn your research question into a thesis statement indicating your position, points, subtopic, or solutions. (7 points)
Citations: You can select any citation style you choose, but it should be consistent throughout your annotated bibliography. Each source must be cited correctly. (3 points each, 21 total)
Summaries: You will provide a summary of each source, indicating the overall idea of the source, along with key points and relevant takeaways. Summaries should be unbiased and focused on the article itself, not your opinion. (5 points each, 35 total)
Evaluations: You will evaluate each source based on authorship, credibility, bias, accuracy, relevance, audience, format, and other parameters discussed in class. Evaluations may include your opinion on how to use the source in research or how it provides evidence for your thesis. (7 points each, 49 total)
Synthesis: After you have summarized and evaluated your seven sources, select two sources and write a paragraph about how they relate. How would you synthesize these sources? How would you compare or contrast them? Consider things like shared authorship, similar publications, if they share a similar thesis, if they approach your question from different angles, or if they build off each other. (13 points)
Overall Clarity, Quality, and Legibility: You use full sentences, proofread your paper for errors, and clearly convey your ideas. (8points)
Personal Reflection Essay
In this essay, you will reflect on the Annotated Bibliography process and assignment. This is a personal narrative essay. You do not need any outside sources for the Personal Reflection Essay, but you may choose to reference the sources cited in your Annotated Bibliography. If you use these sources, please cite them appropriately.
Your Personal Reflection Essay should be at least 750 words.Focus on the ways you found, read, evaluated, used, synthesized, or cited different types of sources. You can also talk about the research process, thesis statement, editing, revision process, the Writing Center visit, or the Annotated Bibliography assignment overall. What did you learn? What would you do differently?
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