Introduction, Thesis Statement, and Annotated Bibliography

Prepare: To help with the preparation of your annotated bibliography, review the following tutorials and resources from the Ashford Writing Center:

Introduction Paragraph Guide

Thesis Statement tutorial

Annotated Bibliography tutorial

Sample Annotated Bibliography

Evaluating Sources

Reflect: Reflect back on the Week Two Discussion in which you shared with the class the global societal issue that you would like to further address.

Explore critical insights that were shared by your peers and/or your instructor on the topic chosen and begin your search for scholarly sources with those insights in mind.

Write: For this assignment, review the Annotated Bibliography Formatting Guidelines and address the following prompts:

Introductory Paragraph to Topic: Refer to the Final Argumentative Essay guidelines for your topic selection. Write an introductory paragraph with at least 150 words, which clearly explains the topic, the importance of further research, and ethical implications.

Thesis statement: Write a direct and concise thesis statement, which will become the solution to the problem that you will argue or prove in the Week Five Final Argumentative Essay. A thesis statement should be a declarative statement that makes one point in 25 words or less.

The thesis statement must appear at the end of the introductory paragraph.

Annotated Bibliography: Develop an annotated bibliography to indicate the quality of the sources you have read. For each annotation, you need to summarize in your own words how the source contributes to the solution of the global societal issue. Your annotation should be one to two paragraphs long (150 words or more) and fully address the purpose, content, evidence, and relation to other sources you found on this topic.

The annotated bibliography must include no less than five scholarly sources that will be used to support the major points of the Final Argumentative Essay. Critical thinking skills need to be demonstrated by accurately interpreting evidence used to support various positions of the topic.

The Introduction, Thesis Statement, and Annotated Bibliography Assignment

Must be 1,000 - 1,250 words in length (excluding the title and reference pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

Must include a separate title page with the following:

Title of paper

Student's name

Course name and number

Instructor's name

Date submitted

Must use at least five scholarly sources.

Must document all sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

You chose to consider researching on adult literacy as well as funding for general and STEM programs for my essay.

I chose the two topics because they are concerned with the same thing, Education. As an individual who enjoys learning, I would like to reduce the level of illiteracy in the country. Students should be encouraged to learn things that they have a passion for, and this can be promoted through the STEM programs. I narrowed down to the STEM program because it can be used in our public school systems as well as in adult education.

To analyze sources to determine if they are credible and scholarly, I first look at the year a publication was done and if it has been reviewed by anybody. Google scholar is also a reliable site where all the peer-reviewed scholarly articles, publications, and books can be found.

Web pages that end with "org" or "net" usually provide credible information as opposed to those that end with "com" as they may be biased. I would also use the C.R.A.A.P method or just read through the entire information and determine if it is credible. If you chose to use Ashford Library, it can help you determine if it was a peer-review by making that selection when choosing a topic or subject in the library of Ashford University as well.

From the Ashford Library, the first article I came about is Basic Reading Skills and the Literacy of America's Least Literate Adults written by White, Sabatini, and Kutner. This article is credible as it uses literacy tests to people who are sixteen years and older and explains its findings in detail (Baer et al., 2009). Also the article, How Minority becomes Majority: exploring discursive and rationalized shifts in the adult literacy conversation explains how lives can change if people decided to go back to school (Ntiri, 2013).

Scholarly articles should be used as support material because they provide information that is based on facts and researchers and case studies mostly back them. This ensures that the information provided can be trusted as the authors are named.

References

Baer, J., Kutner, M., Sabatini, J., & White, S. (2009). Basic Reading Skills and the Literacy of America's Least Literate Adults: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) Supplemental Studies. NCES 2009-481. National Center for Education Statistic

Ntiri, D. W. (2013). How Minority Becomes Majority: Exploring Discursive and Racialized Shifts in the Adult Literacy Conversation. Western Journal Of Black Studies, 37(3), 159-168.