Week 6 Writing Assignment: Annotated Bibliography for Essay 2
Create an Annotated Bibliography on one of the classic arguments below (or an instructor approved classic argument) in preparation for Essay
Identify three sources you may use in your final paper and write summaries for each source. You should write a 200-300 word summary for each source, so your final annotated bibliography is 600-900 words in length. You should uses sources from the GMC Library’s Opposing Viewpoints database that list an author or author(s) OR sources containing a .doi number in the URL of the Works Cited entry that list an author or author(s).
1. Choose an argument essay that resonates most with you from the linked essays below. Keep in mind some of the strategies we covered this week on rhetorical analysis.
2. Prepare an Annotated Bibliography which shows four sources from the GMC Library’s English/Literature databases.
An annotated bibliography is a list of sources you are considering using, and these are typically done in preparation for writing longer researched papers. Annotated bibliographies are simply a list of sources cited in MLA style, and underneath each source entry is a paragraph-length “annotation” (or, summary/evaluation) of the article’s main points. So, each source listed will have two parts: a citation and an annotation. A citation contains the publication information for the source and tells how and/or where you found it.
Sample MLA citation:
Farhi, Paul. “There Is No Significant Media Bias.” Mass Media. Ed. Margaret Haerens and Lynn M. Zott. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2014. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from “How Biased Are the Media, Really?” Washington Post 27 Apr. 2012. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 6 Mar. 2016.
An annotation is a short summary of the source followed by a critical assessment of it. Summarize the points that are most relevant to your topic. Then assess the source’s ethos (credibility). Does this source come from a scholarly journal? Is the author an expert in his or her field? If the source seems less credible, then what has convinced you to use it? Does the source prove a specific point in your paper, or are you arguing against the article? Finally, explain how this source relates to your other sources (Is it saying the same thing? Is it arguing against your other sources?) and how you plan to use it (Are you relying on it mostly for certain information, and if so, what information is that? How will this article help you?).
Each annotation should be 200-300 words in length. Some annotations will be longer either because the source you are annotating is longer, or because that source is more important to your paper and thus requires more careful analysis.
Your annotated bibliography should be in typed in 12-point Times New Roman font, and should be in MLA format complete with a header, page numbers, etc. Where you would usually list the title of your research paper, you should write the tentative title of your paper, then “Annotated Bibliography.” A more specific title might be: “An Analysis of Media Bias: Annotated Bibliography.”
ESSAYS:
David Foster Wallace, “Consider the Lobster” (ethics of food choices)
Link: http://www.columbia.edu/~col8/lobsterarticle.pdf
Henry David Thoreau, “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”
Link: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/71/71-h/71-h.htm
Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”
Link: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm
Sojourner Truth, “Ain’t I a Woman?”
Link: http://uploads.worldlibrary.net/uploads/pdf/20180117225932sojourner_truth.pdf
Tom Buchanan, “Why Do People Spread False Information Online?”
Link: https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=OVIC&u=mill30389&id=GALE|A637699196&v=2.1&it=r&sid=bookmark-OVIC&asid=01ab9d10
Tom Nichols, “How We Killed Expertise (and Why We Need it Back)”
Link: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/05/how-we-killed-expertise-215531/
Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence”
Link: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/300/pg300-images.html
Yascha Mounk “The Doom Spiral of Pernicious Polarization” (polarization in the U.S. due to politics and media sources)
Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/us-democrat-republican-partisan-polarization/629925/
