CREATE BIBLIOGRAPHY on RELIABLE SOURCES

READ THE COMMENTS FROM TEACHER FOR PREVIOUS WORK

A bibliography is, simply, a list of sources.  An annotated bibliography is a list of sources that you elaborate on, or annotate.  Often, this kind of expanded works-cited list comes at the end of a research paper, though it can be helpful to compile an annotated bibliography before writing the first draft as a way of organizing your research.

This assignment asks you to think about, first, what potential ancillary texts are saying, and second, how those texts fit in with your preliminary interpretation of your primary text. To do this, please go through the following steps to create an annotated bibliography:

DO SOME RESEARCH ABOUT DAVID SHIELDS, ORIGINALITY, AND PLAGIARISM

AND FIND A FEW RELIABLE SOURCES THAT WE CAN USE TO UNDERSTAND THE TEXT

Step 1 (Finding a starting place): A good place to start is to identify something that you want to better understand about the essay that you have selected as the primary source for your reckoning essay (Shields). Read over the representation that you wrote for Assignment 2. Skim the essay one more time, with an eye toward things that confuse you, frustrate you, and fascinate you. Now write a single sentence that articulates a conceptual question, an intellectual problem, or a puzzle that arises from your reading of the text. Then write another sentence or two further explaining your thinking (imagining someone is reading over your shoulder and asking "what do you mean by that?"). So this is the jumping off point for your own essay. This question, problem, or puzzle is what will help you to analyze the text (and that work will eventually lead you to an argument--but you're not there yet).

Step 2 (Reviewing the literature): Take another look at the sources directly related to your chosen essay that you discovered on your own as part of the previous assignment. If your sources were limited to dictionary definitions, then you're going to have to do some more digging. And expand your focus: think about and browse the various sources that we have discussed together over the term: all of the possible primary and ancillary sources for the deepening essay, the other assigned texts for the reckoning essay, and class handouts and additional readings like, Eula Biss's "Time and Distance Overcome," and even sample student essays. You might also give some thought to sources that you have come across in other classes.

Step 3 (Allocating sources): Review the handout about Joseph Bizup's "BEAM Method" and then make a chart with the headings Background, Exhibit, Argument, and Method (or just make a simple list--the format is not what's important here). Under each heading, identify one source (from all of the possible options that you explored in Step 2) that you could use in that way to better understand your primary text and to address your motivating question/problem/puzzle. Cite these sources in MLA format. 

FIND AT LEAST ONE SOURCE FOR EACH METHOD

BEAM METHOD

·       Background: using a source to provide general information to explain the topic. For example, the use of a Wikipedia page on the Pledge of Allegiance to explain the relevant court cases and changes the Pledge has undergone.

·       Exhibit: using a source as evidence or examples to analyze. For a literature paper, this would be a poem you are analyzing. For a history paper, a historical document you are analyzing. For a sociology paper, it might be the data from a study.

·       Argument: using a source to engage its argument. For example, you might use an editorial from the New York Times on the value of higher education to refute in your own paper.

·       Method: using a source’s way of analyzing an issue to apply to your own issue. For example, you might use a study’s methods, definitions, or conclusions on gentrification in Chicago to apply to your own neighborhood in New York City.

Step 4 (Annotating the list): Beneath the citation for each source, write two or three sentences in which you discuss what the source is saying (this will be like a very short representation) and how what this source is saying informs your understanding of your selected primary source. In other words, you want to discuss how you will use the information and ideas in this ancillary source to inform your interpretation of the primary essay.

Please turn in the writing that you did in Step 1 along with the completed chart.