Assignment 2 ,1250 words

Annotated Bibliography of Your Research

The Assignment In this assignment, you are asked to research an issue in order to:

· discover how that issue is depicted by people interested in it, and

· answer your research question.

To do this, you will write an annotated bibliography of at least eight sources on your issue.

The purpose of this assignment is to discover how your issue is depicted by different people who hold different positions on your issue and different conjectures about the cause of the problem. A depiction of a state of affairs is called a "conjecture" in rhetoric. If parties to an argument hold different conjectures about the way the world works, this difference may contribute to their inability to agree on a particular issue. For example, a conservative politician might conjecture that people are poor because they are too lazy to work, while a liberal politician might conjecture that people are poor because for some reason beyond their control they have been unable to find or get work. A socialist, on the other hand, might conjecture that people are poor under capitalism because capitalism mandates that wealth be unequally distributed. As you can see from this example, conjectures do not establish the truth or fact of the issue under discussion; rather, they represent an educated guess about what might be, or what might have occurred. And since people who occupy different social and political positions may perceive reality very differently, people may paint very different pictures of that reality.

While researching for different perspectives on your issue, you will also start finding the sources that will help answer the research question you developed in your Research Proposal Essay. By focusing on the need to find different perspectives on the issue, be sure to not only find the sources/evidence that support your answer to the question, but also sources/evidence that are different from your own opinion and that even disagree.

Goal The point of this assignment is to use reading and writing to help you understand that it is possible for events and objects in the world to be depicted differently by people who are advancing their own interests and see the issue from different perspectives. These differing positions that people take on issues arise from their different positions in culture, from their individual histories, and from the history of the culture they inhabit. You are required to use at least eight (8) different sources for this assignment, and the entire annotated bibliography should be between 4-7 pages long. You will need to use credible sources.

Composition An annotated bibliography is basically a list of sources with a paragraph of description and explanation about each one. Your paragraphs of description for each source should enlarge our understanding of how the issue is perceived by the author(s) of the source, and it should also help us to evaluate the various positions taken by persons who are concerned with the issue. You may wish to list key themes that appear in the source, and you might want to speculate as to why the author(s) holds the position he or she does. A successful paper will illustrate the complexity of the issue you are studying by using the annotations to map out the available positions and reflect on the parties' investment in those positions. In addition, your annotated bibliography should include an introductory paragraph that identifies the issue you are researching and some of the controversy surrounding it and a concluding paragraph that describes what you have learned by looking at different perspectives on the issue you are researching.

At minimum, each of the annotations should include the following:

· A summary of the source;

· A description of the perspective being conveyed and a brief analysis of how and why this group holds their beliefs;

· An evaluation of the relevance and value (authority) of the source; and

· A reflection of how and why this source fits into your research.

The annotations might also include the following:

· A comparison of the source to other sources in the bibliography;

· A description of how you foresee yourself using the source in your Researched Persuasive Essay; and

· An analysis of how and why this source allows you to better understand your purpose and audience for your Researched Persuasive Essay.

You will be required to follow the MLA citation style guidelines for this paper. It is very important that you leave yourself enough time to carefully examine all of your in-text and bibliographic citations. Your grade will suffer if you do not properly follow MLA citation guidelines for both direct quoting and paraphrasing. Your bibliographic citations must also be correct. If you have any difficulties trying to determine what the proper bibliographic citation set-up is, check in your Grammar Rules! Book or Purdue Owl online writing lab. The Write Place may be another source for additional support and guidance. And, feel free to schedule to meet with me during office hours or during workshop in class.

Getting Started with Your Research

· Go to ECC’s homepage.

· Click on “Library” under the heading “Resources.”

· Click on “Search Library Resources Now.”

· Click on “Article Databases.”

· Type in search terms and be sure to limit your search “full text.” This assures that you only retrieve articles to which have full access. Note: “Peer reviewed journals” limits you to scholarly journals. Scholarly journals are usually considered more authoritative and reliable.

· Continue trying different, yet related, search terms to find more sources.