Preparing this bibliography requires you to make careful judgments about the sources listed in it and also to ascertain that they are potentially useful to you. Later, you'll draw on this bibliography as you write your research synthesis.
Assignment: Compile an annotated bibliography of 10 scholarly sources for your research project.
Begin the bibliography with the contact information specified on "Manuscript formatting and design." Follow that with a title, along the lines of "Annotated Bibliography: Copyright." Next, give me a sentence or two that tells me the focus of your research. What questions are you pursuing?
The bibliography should include at least 10 sources that you are confident will be useful in your research. Six of these sources must be scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles.
Each entry should begin with the bibliographic citation. Follow that with a single-paragraph annotation that includes information about the author and/or publication (1 sentence?); evaluation of the source (1 sentence?); summary of the source (3 sentences?); and indication of how you might use the source in your research (1 sentence?) Shoot for 150- to 200-word annotations (excluding the source citation).
Format your entries according to MLA guidelines, and arrange them in alphabetical order by author (or by title, when no author is listed). The Cornell site includes sample entries in the annotated bibliiography.
Feel free to email or IM me while you're working on this or any assignment. I try to answer IM messages immediately and email eithin 24 hours.
One challenge of this assignment is that some of your sources will be accompanied by abstracts. Your job is not to copy that abstract nor to paraphrase it, but to write your own. I recommend that you cover up any abstracts that are provided with your sources, so that you aren't influenced by them as you write.
Length: At least 10 entries.
Manuscript preparation: Follow the specifications here.
Due date: The final draft is due as an electronic submission, a word-processed document attached to email, on February 26.
Grading: As I grade this assignment, my primary concerns will be whether you have followed the directions above. I'll be particularly looking at the quality of your annotations. I expect precise MLA citation style. If you are using a program such as EasyBib or RefWorks, you'll need to verify that your citations are completely accurate in their format, layout, and the like. Editing matters; so does the manuscript presentation. If you do the assignment as requested and hand it in on time, you'll get a "C." If you do it well, you'll get a "B." If you do it exceptionally well, you'll get an "A." Annotations that are copied from an abstract will result in an "F" for the paper. Annotations that are paraphased from an abstract will result in a "D" for the paper. This assignment counts as 15% of your final course grade.