An Annotated Bibliography is also called a Source Report; it means that you will be reporting on your sources, and it will be helpful in conducting research for the upcoming Persuasive Essay
The upcoming persuasive essay will involve using academic research to support your arguments. Since good research skills are essential to college success, especially in upper-level coursework, this assignment will be an excellent first step in learning to engage in college-level academic research. For the upcoming persuasive essay assignment, you will be researching a question or topic that is arguable and something you can attempt to persuade your readers about. For this Annotated Bibliography assignment, you will find, read, and annotate academic-quality sources that provide evidence about your topic. Essentially, you are doing the “research” part of a research paper before writing the “paper” part.
Directions:
1. Before you begin this assignment, make sure you have read all of the required readings from Weeks 9, 10, and 11 (which involve finding credible sources and writing Annotated Bibliographies). I also highly suggest reading the Owl at Purdue’s Annotated Bibliography Breakdown and Annotated Bibliography Samples.
2. Locate at least five research-quality sources that deal with your topic in some way (see “Finding and Evaluating Sources” in the Unit 4 Additional/Recommended Resources section, which should help you get started with the research process). These sources should be secondary, meaning they are written by someone else (as opposed to primary sources, such as an interview you conduct yourself), and they should be written sources (as opposed to a video, for example). However, if you have a good idea for conducting a survey or an interview or using a different kind of source, like a video or podcast, I am open to alternative ideas like this; just be sure to discuss these ideas with me in advance! All sources must be written in English and verifiable; in other words, you must provide the correct citation so that I can verify they exist.
3. For each of your five sources, include a properly formatted MLA works cited entry (see the MLA formatting rules from the Owl at Purdue), and then directly underneath the works cited entry, include at least a paragraph about the source that thoroughly does the following:
summarizes the source in your own words (use these “Five Keys to Writing Effective Summaries”). Important note: Summaries should be written IN YOUR OWN WORDS. If you use any direct (word-for-word) quotes from the source as you summarize it, they must be in quotation marks to show they are not your own words and include a parenthetical citation, as we will discuss in class. Direct quotes should be used sparingly (no more than a sentence or two of your summary should be quotations) and with purpose (in other words, they should be significant quotes that help summarize the source or that feel like important quotes you want to keep track of so that you can potentially include them in your persuasive essay).
evaluates the source for its credibility/reliability. Make sure that you provide at least five reasons why this source is trustworthy based on our course concepts of what constitutes a credible source. You can review these concepts in the relevant unit 4 readings, such as Assessing Source Credibility and the “Evaluating Sources” section of Finding and Evaluating Sources.
explains the source’s potential usefulness in your essay; how might this source serve as support to your overall argument or a specific claim? How might it help you provide background information to your readers or address potential opposition?
NOTE: Feel free to use the sample Annotated Bibliographies from the Owl at Purdue as templates for your own. You can also see a couple of student examples of Annotated Bibliographies in the Unit 4 Additional/Recommended Resources section.
Assignment point breakdown:
10 points for each source annotation (which includes a thorough annotation as explained above, sentence clarity/mechanics, and MLA format).
Total possible points: 50
