English 1A
Gavilan College

Purpose

To keep track of your research findings; to practice annotations and MLA format for bibliographies.

Overview  

An annotated bibliography contains all the pertinent bibliographic information about the source, with the addition of a few extra sentences (annotations) describing each source. The annotation for each source will be at least a paragraph, as you summarize the main ideas (include at least one quote that might be helpful to your paper) and discuss your response to those ideas, and your thoughts on how it might be of use to you in your paper.

Directions:

1.  Read "The Research Process" (module 4 checklist) and the instructions for Essay 3, The Research Paper.

2. Choose a topic that you want to research. If you don't choose from the list of preferred topics, you must let me know which topic you are researching. It should have something to do with the material we are reading about in the book.

3. Find sources, following the guidelines in The Research Process document to conduct your research.You will need at least 5 sources (more is encouraged).  Most sources are books, articles from a periodical, or a website.  However, if you want to do field research (interviews, surveys, experiments, etc) feel free to branch out.  Please take care that your sources are "scholarly"!  Be very wary of .com sites.  It's much better to go with sites from the library databases, like CQ Researcher and EBSCO (among others).  I will allow commercial sources for this paper only if the information has been evaluated according to the guidelines spelled out in the research guidelines.  No Wikipedia sources will be accepted! Wikipedia is a great place to start, but you need to find more credible sources for your final submission.

2.  Write a bibliographical citation, listing all the important information for each source. For a list of the pieces of information needed in the annotated bibliography, review the resources below and/or in your Hacker book. Each type of source has a different format for citing, so be sure you are using the right format.

3.  Write an annotation (a short descriptive paragraph) for each source: 

• Summarize the information available in the source: author's main idea, supporting points.
• Explain why you chose this source.
• Describe how the information in the source will help support your thesis.

4. Save and submit