One goal of a college education is to get you ready to enter your field of discourse—to uncover a major topic in your field, to become knowledgeable about what others are saying about it, and to join the conversation by finding a new perspective to add. This assignment is one step in that process. It is meant to help you collect and review works that illustrate the major conversations on your chosen topic in the field. It is similar to a literature review. However, unlike a literature review, the sources are not linked to each other—there is no ongoing conversation between the sources. Instead, each source is discussed separately in this document. Some people say that this makes the annotated bibliography easier to do.

Choose the same topic you chose from the Research Topic Generator Worksheet from last week. Use the school’s databases, Google Scholar, newspaper articles, interviews, and any other sources that are appropriate to find as much information as you can about your chosen topic, its history, and its significance. Remember, not every source you find will be relevant to your research! It is up to you to decide if something is going to help you explain your chosen topic better.

Once you have completed your research, you will construct an annotated bibliography of your research. Your bibliography must include annotations for at least four to six sources. This should be a combination of books, articles, and interviews.

Each annotation must include the following:

Other than citations, there are two major components of an annotated bibliography: summaries and evaluations.

75-100 word summary- The first paragraph of your annotation should include your summary of the source including details and points of interest. This allows you to both further your understanding of your source and pinpoint important information you can use later.

75-100 word discussion- The second paragraph of your annotation should include your evaluation of the source. Some questions you should answer in your evaluation paragraph are:

Is this a credible source? Is this popular or scholarly? Is this source biased or mostly informational? Is this source relevant to your research? Does most of the information apply to what you’re doing or is it loosely tied to your work?

Requirements

MLA Header APA citation (to begin the entry); sources must be listed in alphabetical order by the author’s last name (if multiple authors are listed, use the first one named) 75-100 word summary of the major argument/finding/point 75-100 word discussion of how it relates to the other articles in your Annotated Bibliography and how you plan to use this source in your larger essay 3-4 pages

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