Now that you’ve turned your observations into research questions and spent some time looking into how your variables of interest are measured, it is time to fine tune your hypotheses. You’ll need to consider: 1) what has been done before on the topic 2) how realistic it is for you to conduct the study and 3) identify the literature gap (i.e. what issues were not addressed in prior studies and/or what limitations exist?).
To fine tune your hypotheses, you’ll create an annotated bibliography on your topic. If you need help deciding between two topics, you may need to look into the literature on each of your topics and see what has been done before deciding which one to focus on.
See the video on annotated bibliography (this is an COMBINED annotated bibilography at 11 minute mark). Keep in mind that this is an opportunity to do a great job (in your own words–paraphrasing and evaluating the source) so that when you conduct the literature review, (in the next week or two) you will have a lot of the work completed.
What is an Annotated Bibliography?
An annotated bibliography is a list of citations for books, articles, and chapters. Each citation is followed by a brief (usually about 150 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited. Annotations are descriptive and critical; they expose the author’s point of view, clarity and appropriateness of expression, and authority. Annotations also serve as a way for you to prove to the reader that your sources are quality, relevant and well thought out for your paper.
– taken from: http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/skill28.htm
Requirements: – You must list at least 8 scholarly peer reviewed articles as you would on a Reference page (alphabetized by author’s last name, correct APA format, etc.).
For each of these sources, your annotation should include:
2-4 sentence summary of the main ideas/findings of the source
1-2 sentences about the research study/participants/methods
1-2 sentence explanation of why you chose this source and how it is relevant (connected) your research question
The annotated bibliography should be in APA format
