Assignment

Part One: Summary of Research Strategy and Process

In at least two pages, double-spaced, describe an overview of your research strategy in narrative (paragraph) form. Be sure to address the following questions:

Choosing your topic

• How did you select the topic, research question, and thesis statement you used to begin your search?

• How did your research influence your approach to your original topic? Did you need to narrow, broaden, or otherwise change it, and if so, how?

• What is your final thesis statement?

Finding your sources

• What were the keywords and/or subject headings you used to focus your topic and locate your sources?

• What were some advanced search techniques you used? In other words, did you use Boolean operators, truncation, phrase searching, limiters, field searching, etc.? Provide specific examples of how you used these techniques.

• Which keywords and search strategies worked best for your topic? Which did not work well?

• What were the tools (library databases, library catalogs, Internet search engines, etc.) that you used to locate the items on your annotated bibliography, and which proved the most effective? Name the specific databases (e.g. Academic Search Premier), catalogs (e.g. WorldCat), search engines (e.g. Bing), and other tools that you used.

• What was your favorite and/or most surprising discovery, either in terms of an actual resource or tool, or the research process itself? Why was this your favorite and/or most surprising discovery?

Evaluating your sources

• Explain to me what criteria you used in selecting your sources and why those criteria are important or relevant for your topic. In other words, what standards did you use to judge the quality, authority, credibility, and relevance of your sources, both print and electronic? Simply put, how did you decide if a particular source was worth including in your bibliography?

o For example, currency is not necessarily an important criterion for historical topics, but it sure is for scientific ones!

o This is usually the weakest section. Spend time to carefully think and explain why you chose the sources you did. You should convince me that you selected the best possible sources for the topic you researched.

Citing your sources

• Did you use the MLA or APA citation style?
• What was the most challenging aspect of citing your sources?

Part Two: Annotated Bibliography

The following instructions describe what kinds of sources to include in your bibliography and what each annotation must include.

The Process

1. Using the research tools you learned about in this class, find EIGHT information sources that contain useful information and ideas on your topic:

• ONE subject-specific encyclopedia article: Search for an article in one of the library's electronic encyclopedias, like from the Gale Virtual Reference Library. Remember that Wikipedia and The Encyclopaedia Britannica are not subject-specific encyclopedias. You must select and cite a specific article from the encyclopedia you choose. Be sure to review the Week 2 notes on subject-specific encyclopedias!

• ONE authoritative and credible website: This should not be a news website nor should it be a page from Wikipedia. But Wikipedia might point the way to a good site... (Hint, hint.)

• TWO scholarly, peer-reviewed articles: Each article you cite must be at least 3 pages long. Do not choose book reviews. Remember, peer-reviewed articles usually have an abstract and footnotes or a bibliography/references list/works cited page at the end.

• ONE general magazine or newspaper article: If using a newspaper article, you should probably locate it in one of the news databases introduced in Week 5. Using of one of those databases to select an article from a local area newspaper or a major national newspaper would be the best choice.

• ONE non-fiction book: Use Metropolitan State University's or your local public library's catalog to find your book. You'll probably need to actually check it out (borrow) from the library to accurately assess it.

• ONE audiovisual source (DVD, streaming film, CD, TV program, radio broadcast, podcast, etc.): Films on Demand is a good source for streaming films. You can also find high quality TV and radio programs online, such as at PBS.org, NPR.org, MPRnews.org, C-SPAN.org, and the BBC.

• ONE free choice selection: You can choose a source from any of the categories identified.

2. Cite each source using correct MLA, APA, or Chicago style. Use your Hacker textbook to help you.

• When citing your sources, do not completely trust online citation generators or the citation tools within library databases. They are not perfect; they get you about 80% of the way there. If you use these tools, I strongly suggest that you check the citations against the models in the Hacker textbook. You will be glad you did!

3. Write an annotation of 5-10 sentences following EACH citation.

The Annotations

The purpose of your annotations is to inform your reader of the relevance and quality of the sources cited. Each annotation must 1) indicate where you found the source, 2) provide a brief summary of the source content, and 3) justify why you think the source is a valuable one to include in your bibliography, i.e., explain how and why the source supports your thesis. To justify the source's inclusion, your annotation should probably address areas such as these:

• Comment on the author's authority or background, e.g., the author teaches the subject matter at a university or is a journalist specializing in the subject for a major national newspaper

• Compare or contrast this work with another you have cited

• Mention specific charts or graphs if they illustrate important points

• Explain how this work relates to your research, e.g., provides basic background, agrees or disagrees with your thesis, etc.

• Comment on the author's perspective or point of view, if apparent

Simply put, each annotation should clearly answer these two questions:

• How does this source specifically help support or substantiate your thesis statement?

• What is this source about?

o If I don't know what a source is about after reading your annotation, I will assume that you don't either.