17 Jan 2008 [ Prev
| Next ]
Ex 6: Annotated Bibliography (about 4 pages)
Compile a list of about 10 credible sources for your research paper. Summarize the content of the article in a short paragraph (with special attention to the author's thesis.) Evaluate the article (with special attention to how it will help you create a strong research paper.)
You may include texts on the syllabus, or texts that you have found on your own. I recognize there may be value in non-academic sources, such as interviews with designers or reviews in magazines or on personal weblogs, but when you are writing a scholarly paper, you should draw mostly from scholarly sources (such as journal articles, full-length books, or a single essay published as part of a collection).
Begin with a full MLA-style citation, as you would format it for a Works Cited list. Unlike a WC list, however, I'm asking you to follow each entry with a short summary of the article (explaining what the author was trying to do), and following that with another short paragraph that explains how this specific item will help you explore the topic you are choosing for your term paper.
If you're doing a term paper on Sim City, I don't expect you to find ten peer-reviewed articles on Sim City. You will probably find a handful of great sources that at least mention Sim City in passing, but other articles might be even more useful if they discuss simulation games in general. An article that doesn't even mention games at all, but instead discusses some aspect of city planning in the real world, may be extremely useful.
Here's an example of an annotated bibliography on interactive fiction. My evaluations are all based on how useful each item is for those who are interested in studying interactive fiction. (You don't have to assign a ranking to each item, but you should still evaluate it -- this means you need to move beyond summarizing what the item contains, and instead focus on explaining why a specific quoted passage will help you accomplish a certain intellectual task... thus, I asked you to read Jesper Juul's early essay not because it perfectly matched my own opinions, but rather because I wanted you to see how much Juul's opinion changed over time.)
You don't need to commit to using all 10 of these items in your term paper. You don't have to use ANY of them... my goal is not to force to you to lock yourself in this early, but rather to ensure that you're exposing yourselves to the kind of meaty arguments that will help you to come up with a thesis that engages with the ideas you find in the scholarly sources.
Asking you to do this bibliography research now is my attempt to prevent the horrible experience you will face if you write your paper first (based only on ideas from your own head), and then "look for quotes" to support the argument you have already made. (It makes far more sense to find good quotes first, and then develop a thesis statement that you can actually support based on the evidence you've already found.)
As always, please feel free to contact me with questions or comments.
You may include texts on the syllabus, or texts that you have found on your own. I recognize there may be value in non-academic sources, such as interviews with designers or reviews in magazines or on personal weblogs, but when you are writing a scholarly paper, you should draw mostly from scholarly sources (such as journal articles, full-length books, or a single essay published as part of a collection).
Begin with a full MLA-style citation, as you would format it for a Works Cited list. Unlike a WC list, however, I'm asking you to follow each entry with a short summary of the article (explaining what the author was trying to do), and following that with another short paragraph that explains how this specific item will help you explore the topic you are choosing for your term paper.
If you're doing a term paper on Sim City, I don't expect you to find ten peer-reviewed articles on Sim City. You will probably find a handful of great sources that at least mention Sim City in passing, but other articles might be even more useful if they discuss simulation games in general. An article that doesn't even mention games at all, but instead discusses some aspect of city planning in the real world, may be extremely useful.
Here's an example of an annotated bibliography on interactive fiction. My evaluations are all based on how useful each item is for those who are interested in studying interactive fiction. (You don't have to assign a ranking to each item, but you should still evaluate it -- this means you need to move beyond summarizing what the item contains, and instead focus on explaining why a specific quoted passage will help you accomplish a certain intellectual task... thus, I asked you to read Jesper Juul's early essay not because it perfectly matched my own opinions, but rather because I wanted you to see how much Juul's opinion changed over time.)
You don't need to commit to using all 10 of these items in your term paper. You don't have to use ANY of them... my goal is not to force to you to lock yourself in this early, but rather to ensure that you're exposing yourselves to the kind of meaty arguments that will help you to come up with a thesis that engages with the ideas you find in the scholarly sources.
Asking you to do this bibliography research now is my attempt to prevent the horrible experience you will face if you write your paper first (based only on ideas from your own head), and then "look for quotes" to support the argument you have already made. (It makes far more sense to find good quotes first, and then develop a thesis statement that you can actually support based on the evidence you've already found.)
As always, please feel free to contact me with questions or comments.
Categories:
due_dates
