Annotated Bibliography Final Draft

Week 6: Creating Bibliographies and Practicing MLA Citation

Annotated Bibliography Assignment Sheet and Rubric

Assignment: You will create an annotated bibliography of 8-10 high-quality sources you plan on using in your Final Hybrid Argument paper for this course. An annotated bibliography is a wonderful research tool that allows you to keep track of and represent your research in one condensed location. You will correctly cite and format each source according as you would on your Works Cited page, followed by a brief summary and personal evaluation of the source.

Further Annotated Bibliography Explanation Found on Owl Perdue Online Writing Lab: Annotated Bibliographies

What Is an Annotated Bibliography? An annotation is a brief summary of a book, article, or other publication. An abstract is also a summary, but there is a difference between the two. An abstract is simply a summary of a work, whereas the purpose of an annotation is to describe the work in such a way that the reader can decide whether or not to read the work itself. An annotated bibliography helps the reader understand the particular usefulness of each item. The ideal annotated bibliography shows the relationships among individual items and may compare their strengths or shortcomings.

Technical Requirements for Each of Your 8-10 Sources:

• Bibliography must be formatted according to MLA 8 style and formatting guidelines (i.e. format your citations as they will appear on your final Works Cited page)

• Each Annotation should be approximately 250-500 words in length and should include: o A 3-4 sentence objective summary immediately following the citation. You are required to use the

objective summary and attributive tag skills from Chapter 8 (Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings 11e)

o A 2-3 sentence evaluation indicating how this source might (or might not) contribute to your research (not your opinion of the source itself, but your opinion about how effectively it would serve as evidence for your argument; be specific and think rhetorically).

• A bibliography is an opportunity to demonstrate high quality research so as you select your 8-10 sources to annotate, make sure you are selecting the very best and most exemplar sources

Helpful Note: Consider the chart from pages 109-111 of your textbook, Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric with Readings 11e, to help you rhetorically evaluate each source. Attributive Tags can be reviewed on pages 369-371. Additional Requirements and Reminders:

• Sources should appear in alphabetical order by the author’s last name. If an author is not provided, alphabetize based on the first major word of the article title.

• Times New Roman 12-point font, Double-spaced, One-inch margins

• Minimal errors in punctuation or accuracy/completeness of information

• You are highly encouraged to not use any service or program that will “do it for you” – these are frequently inaccurate and cause unnecessary problems for students, particularly when you are doing an annotated bibliography (which requires extra, “human” attention to formatting).

Potential bibliography sources include but are not limited to: Books, journals, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, personal interviews, lectures, speeches, videos, tweets, YouTube videos, TED talks, textbooks, scholarly articles, etc.

Criteria

Below Expectation

(0-30)

Meeting

Expectations

(31-43)

Outstanding

(44-50)

Total

Points

Nuts and

Bolts

Did student annotate a minimum of 8 sources? Did students submit in an acceptable word

.doc or .docx format? While this assignment is based on completion, points will be awarded

based on the breadth, quality, and completeness of your reflection.

__/ 10

Style Conventional and accepted rules of good writing are followed including the following: 1) Summaries remain impartial, brief, abbreviations and direct quotes are avoided 2) Student does not rely on “fluff” to meet annotation length i.e. do not report information in the title 3) Remain objective and avoid introducing personal prejudices.

__/ 10

Length and

Breadth

Did student draft an objective and evaluate the rhetorical usefulness of the source meeting a minimum 250-word count for each entry? Did student stay focused on the key ideas but provided enough information to be useful for outside evaluators or researchers?

__/ 5

Perspective

Summaries are composed in third person perspective and the student remains objective during evaluation.

__/5

Language

and

Vocabulary

Student makes reasonable attempts to use the vocabulary of the author, as far as possible, to convey the ideas and conclusions of the author. Student avoids excessive paraphrasing and introducing annotations with superfluous and/or redundant phrases like “The author states,” “This article concerns,” “This new contribution to,” etc. Student avoids the monotonous starting of sentences with “It was suggested that,” “It was found that,” “It was reported that,” etc. Annotations in which most sentences end with “are discussed” and “are given” are similarly ineffective.

__/ 10

MLA

Formatting

Are all source entries cited without erroneous mistakes according to MLA 8 standard guidelines? Did student meticulously follow document formatting requirements of an Annotated Bibliography?

__/ 10

Annotation Example:

Micciche, Laura R. “Making a Case for Rhetorical Grammar.” College Composition and Communication. 55.4 (2004):

716-37. JSTOR. Web. 18 Nov. 2010. Micciche focuses on the rhetoric of grammar—what we say and how we

say it. She acknowledges that grammar instruction out of context may not produce better writing and she

admits that the “drill-and-kill” exercises may not be beneficial at all. She offers a more succinct definition of

rhetorical grammar, which she defines as “teaching the effective communication through language use.”

Micciche argues that rhetorical grammar instruction is central to composition’s commitment to teaching critical

thinking and cultural criticism. She suggests that the ability to develop sentences to serve a purpose require a

conceptual ability to envision relationships between ideas. In order to link grammar and conceptual thinking,

she encourages writers to stray away from the error-correction goals of formal grammar and assess the

meaning provided by the manipulation of syntactic structure. She maintains that even rhetorical grammar

should be reserved for the end stages of drafting as she concedes that it may reduce time spent on higher-

order concerns if not appropriately applied during the correct stage. Rhetorical grammar instruction will then

move the students toward conscious decision making in order to shape meaning effectively. By creating an

awareness of the power of grammar, instructors encourage students to identify the functions of grammar in

culture as, for instance, a form of resistance. Micciche presents an assignment which she titles “commonplace

books,” which are simply journals kept by all students in which they write daily. Micciche then asks the students

to write a paragraph on the effectiveness of the writing itself or to imitate a writer’s style (not content) in an

attempt to assess the power in the syntax. These assignments open the students’ eyes to more than just the

traditional grammar error-correction and turn them into cultural critics capable of analyzing the manipulation of

grammar. Micciche offers many different examples of student responses to grammatical choices and how

those choices may or may not have been effective in order to illustrate the effectiveness of her commonplace

book assignments. Micciche suggests that rather than abandon grammar instruction, teachers should seek

avenues from which to revitalize the practice in order to promote composition’s goals “to equip students to be

active citizens of the world they inhabit.” This resource will be useful for my overview of grammar instruction

and some of the critiques waged by rhetoric and composition scholars.