annotated bibliography

Annotated Bibliography Assignment Sheet

For your upcoming literature review, your team is required to gather 10 published sources which address your research question. Divide your research task among team members, requiring each person to find four recently published articles from a reliable journal or other professional source. Out of all those gathered, the team will eventually need to decide on the 10 best, and those sources will be used for your literature review. Before you send members off to do research individually, talk to each other about which databases to use to ensure you are not all using the same one.

The annotated bibliography is a report of the outcome of your search for me, your project supervisor. Based on your annotated bibliography, I will be able to assess whether you are conducting your library research efficiently, and whether you are ready to draft your literature review. I will let you know whether you should proceed or change your research strategy or approach. Therefore, before you get too far along in this process, send me an email containing the citations for the articles you PLAN to use (or show me in class), so if I see any problems, they can be corrected BEFORE you write your annotated bibliography or your literature review.

IMPORTANT:

· All team members should look for articles which address your team’s research question; do NOT decide ahead of time what you think the subtopics are and then ask each team member to research those separately. You should all focus on your team’s research question, allowing the authors to “tell” YOU what the important issues are dealing with your subject.

· To be able to write the literature review, everyone on the team must READ and subsequently USE all the articles, so don’t view them as “my articles” and “your articles.” The sources you find become part of your TEAM’S sources, and much of the success of your project rests on their relevance and usefulness.

· Be sure to make copies or email copies of each article to your team. Do NOT print out multiple copies in the computer room.

· Make sure the articles you choose are recently published, credible, and narrowly focused on your topic.

Each annotation includes the following:

· The full bibliographical citation in APA and one paragraph containing two elements:

· a descriptive abstract and

· a statement of relevance to your topic

The descriptive abstract explains what the article covers and summarizes key points. It should establish the credibility of the author, explain the work’s primary purpose, and compare this work with others when appropriate. Add to this the statement of relevance, a sentence or two that concludes your paragraph by explaining how this source is related to your topic. It notes specific information found in the article that may prove useful in determining a solution to the problem.

FORMAT:

Sources should appear in alphabetical order according to the author’s last name. Justify left the first line of each citation and use the hanging indent feature for the second and any subsequent lines. Skip a line between the citation and the abstract. Each abstract should be one fully developed paragraph.

EXAMPLE:

Lukawitz, J.M., & Steinbart, P. (1995). Investor reaction to disclosures of employee fraud. Journal of Management, 7(2), 358-368.

Human resources experts Lukawitz and Steinbart discussed the seriousness of fraud among American businesses and estimated the annual losses due to employee theft and embezzlement. Their research showed that companies have been criticized for not reporting cases of discovered employee fraud, and the authors claimed that the rationale for not disclosing such news is the fear of negative publicity. This position differed from that taken in the Kowalski article, which discussed the role of government in such cases. This study was a key source for our project because it examined investors’ reactions to disclosures of employee fraud.

(updated 12/12. Please refer to Purdue OWL for latest APA updates)

Dos and Don’ts:

1. DO make sure each team member writes his or her own annotations.

2. DO NOT plagiarize abstracts found via your search. Write your own, customizing them to your specific research problem.

3. DO use complete sentences.

4. DO NOT attempt to write a complete summary of the source; just explain what it contains and describe what it covers, then explain why this source is relevant to your project.

5. DO NOT include your audience interview as one of your sources on the annotated bib or on the reference page of your literature review. The annotated bibliography document records your library sources.

6. DO NOT number the entries.

7. DO NOT begin each paragraph with “This article talks about...” -- articles can’t talk. Just begin with the author’s name or introduce the topic of the article in other ways, as in the example above.

8. DO use APA, not MLA.