Expert to Novice Annotated Bibliography

Assignment Overview:

A bibliography is a list of sources such as books, journals, websites, or periodicals that one has used when researching a topic.

An annotation is a summary and/or evaluation. Therefore, an annotated bibliography is a list of summaries and/or evaluations of each of the sources.

Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research project. Writing an annotated bibliography forces you to do more than collect the bibliographic information such as author's name and title. For this assignment, you are required to read each source critically. Writing an annotated bibliography will provide you with a better perspective on what is being said about your topic. By reading and responding to a variety of sources on a topic, you will start to see what the issues are and

what people are arguing about. You will then be able to develop your own point of view.

Annotated bibliographies typically take one of four formats: indicative, informative, evaluative, and combination. An indicative annotated bibliography simply indicates what is in the source such as names of chapters. Beyond titles, no other content is mentioned. Informative annotated bibliographies summarize the reference by including the thesis statement, the hypothesis, the proofs, and the conclusion. An evaluative annotated bibliography assesses the source's strengths and weaknesses.

Most annotated bibliographies use a combination of the informative and evaluative forms. A combination takes 3-4 sentences summarizing the content and 3-4 sentences evaluating the source's usefulness, strengths, and weaknesses.

Check out the OWL for additional info: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/01/.

Specific Requirements:

• Create an alphabetized annotated bibliography of ten references on the same topic. Your next presentation assignment in this class will be to write an informative speech based on the research you conduct for this annotated bibliography.

• Write each citation using APA format and write the annotation beneath the citation.

• Use the combination form mentioned above. Use 3-4 sentences to summarize the content (including a thesis statement) and 3-4 sentences to evaluate the source's usefulness.

• Use a minimum of five journal articles as part of your ten sources.

• Make sure all the references you choose are credible, especially websites.

Annotated Bibliography Examples:

Voeltz, L.M. (1980). Children's attitudes toward handicapped peers.American

Journal of Mental Deficiency, 84, 455-464.

As services for severely handicapped children become increasingly available within neighborhood public schools, children's attitudes toward handicapped peers in integrated settings warrant attention. Factor analysis of attitude survey responses of 2,392 children revealed four factors underlying attitudes toward handicapped peers: social-contact willingness, deviance consequation, and two actual contact dimensions. Upper elementary-age children, girls, and children in schools with most contact with severely handicapped peers expressed the most accepting attitudes. Results of this study suggest the modifiability of children's attitudes and the need to develop interventions to facilitate social acceptance of individual differences in integrated school settings.

The methods and results were detailed and descriptive, but the literature warranting the study was lacking. This article is useful as a single study, but does not provide much literature beyond the specific targeted group. The number of responses to the survey would suggest generalizability to the population.

Walt, V. (2008).Death in birth.Time Magazine, 48-52.

Despite numerous advances in medicine, the number of women dying in childbirth in developing countries remains nearly the same as twenty years ago. Reasons for this stagnant maternal mortality rate include lack of money, medicine, health care workers, and women politicians to push for reforms. Mentions that reducing maternal mortality has been a goal of the U.N.

since 2000 but the rate has been virtually unchanged because of poverty, geography, and entrenched traditions including a belief that maternal mortality is not preventable. Countries who have seen success with programs such as training healthcare workers and midwives in emergency obstetrics are mentioned.

The article mentions a number of countries and their programs as examples of progress being made, but does not provide more detail into the programs or why some countries have addressed the issue more than others. Mentions that maternal mortality rate was mentioned at the last G-8 summit in Japan but fails to explore further what will happen now that the industrialized nations at the summit have acknowledged the issue. Article serves as more of a brief summary of the issue rather than a deep exploration of why the problem has not improved for developing countries and why industrialized nations have not done more.