english casebook

To begin to put the Online Casebook together, review the sources you listed on your Working Bibliography. Choose seven that look like they come the closest to answering the research questions you posted in your Research Proposal. If, after reading and researching further into your topic, you realize that you do NOT have seven that address the issue you are writing about, go back to the library databases and find more sources. Keep searching until you have seven.

Choosing the seven sources for the Online Casebook is important because you are going to spend considerable time reading, summarizing, and critiquing these sources. You might spend as much as eight hours to complete the assignment. Make sure you take as much time as necessary to read and choose sources that answer the questions you posed in your research proposal. The work that you do for the Online Casebook (an online annotated bibliography) will form the basis for your research paper. The time you put into this assignment will pay off when you go to write the paper because much of what you create for the annotated bibliography can go directly into your paper to support the ideas that you are sharing with your readers. This assignment is one of the most important steps in writing the paper. The more time you give to this assignment, the better your paper will be.

Click here:  Annotations and Abstracts , to listen to a tutorial on how to annotate a text.

Once you have decided on the seven most relevant sources, you will format a bibliography just like you did in the last topic. Post a page in your weebly.com portfolio (your e-portfolio that you created in the first week) and copy and paste the bibliography in that page. Then for each source, add a direct link to the source. Remember to list the sources alphabetically and then beneath each source, you will provide the following information:

1. A summary of the source. The first sentence of each annotation should state the author's first and last name, the name of the source, where it appeared, when it appeared and the thesis or main point of the source. Then write a summary that summarizes or paraphrases the main points and ideas of the article. Don t just tell us what the article is about, but tell us what it says . Use specifics from the articles. Include relevant details. Use the guidelines for writing summaries to help you do this and use your own words. Don't quote the source; instead, write what it says in your own words.

2. A mini-critical analysis. What is the writer s purpose in writing this article? (This question will allow you to assess whether or not you have enough different perspectives on the topic.) Who is the audience for this piece? Discuss the context in which this piece was written. In other words, how did where and when it was written affect what was said in the source?

3. A brief evaluation of the piece. Answer these questions: Who is the writer? How do you know the author is credible? How do you know that the author has the adequate information to write the article? How do you know the source is reliable? This is especially important for Internet sources. Here you can refer to the questions on the CRAAP worksheet that you used in the website critique topic.

4. A brief discussion of relevance. End each annotation with a brief discussion of how you will use this information in your research paper. Be specific. Discuss how it will answer the questions you have posed in your Research Proposal or discuss how it will help you to articulate your position or stance toward the topic in the final paper. If you cannot use it to answer the questions or set up a section of your final paper, consider finding a different source.

If you complete the annotated bibliography correctly, it can be used to support the claims that you make in your final research essay. Often the summaries can be cut and pasted from the annotated bibliography directly into your paper. If this step of the research process is completed correctly, you will have the major portion of your research project already written.

If you do not complete this step thoroughly, you will have difficulty getting the page length required for the final paper. You may also have to complete more research before you start writing.