Annotated Bibliography (Staple this page to the front of your bibliography)

Student Name:_______________

Annotated Bibliography

Due Date: Wednesday, March 21

Length: Roughly 3-4 pages or about 600-800 words

Value: As part of your final paper for the course, this assignment is worth 5% of your final grade

Description: You will assess 4 different sources for your annotated bibliography. These sources may or may not eventually be used in your final paper.

Process: First, search the relevant USC Upstate library databases. For example, if your final project involves an organization that tutors young people, then you might look in education or psychology databases. If the organization serves older people, then you might look in nursing, health, or psychology databases. If the organization serves those who live in poverty, then you might look in sociology or economics databases. You should also search the news databases for stories about your organization (either at the national level, or locally here in Spartanburg) or about the issues relevant to your organization. No more than one of the four sources in this assignment should come from a news source rather than a scholarly source.

Second, from what you find, choose four sources relevant to your topic. (A “source” in this case will usually mean an article.)

Third, write up an annotation of each of those four sources. An annotation does two things: it summarizes and it evaluates. Make sure that each of your annotations provides not only an adequate summary of what a particular source says but also a thoughtful assessment of the quality of that work. Is it biased? Does it leave out critical information? Get to the point quickly. Do not write an overly long annotation. Identify the main point of the source and explain how that point is supported.

General advice:

• The first thing listed for each item in an annotated bibliography is an MLA-style bibliographic entry for that source. Underneath that entry is the annotation. Refer to Diana Hacker’s Rules for Writers (page 423) for instructions on how to create a correct MLA-style bibliographic entry.
• In choosing, your bias should be towards recent (previous five years) rather than earlier material, but if you find an earlier work that seems particularly important or influential, include that in your bibliography.
• Don’t just pick the first 4 works you find: take some time to select interesting and relevant information. You might just scan an introductory paragraph or two to check out a work before you commit to including it in your bibliography. Often a work that seems interesting at first turns out to be a dud.
• Book reviews, brief notes, and websites not found through USC Upstate’s library are ineligible for this assignment.

• Stick with article-length sources unless there’s a book that seems especially compelling to you. Talk with me for strategies to get what you need out of a book as efficiently as possible.

The following website does a good job of also explaining how to create an annotated bibliography:

Engle, Michael, Amy Blumenthal, and Tony Cosgrave. "How to Prepare an Annotated Bibliography." Cornell University Library Reference Department. Mar. 5, 2007.

<http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/skill28.htm>