What is this assignment?

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The annotated bibliography and process log will help you to learn (or practice) developing a research question and using the library’s research databases to help yourself to answer it. To do this, you’ll locate, summarize, and critique five scholarly sources that help you to answer an original research question that relates topically to something that you’ve read about in this class (ideally, to the topic that you began to explore in the E-mail To the Author assignment.). You’ll also keep a “process log” which tracks how you located your sources, how you see your sources “in conversation” with one another, and how your research question changed over time.

Why am I doing this?

In college, there’s a high likelihood that no matter what you major in, you’ll have to write some research papers. Doing this often involves learning how to quickly locate, summarize, evaluate, and synthesize a body of scholarly knowledge about your topic in order to come up with your own question. So, while you’re not writing a full research paper in here, this assignment will help you to practice how to conduct research for one. In the next (and final) assignment, the literature review, you’ll use the research that you conduct for your annotated bibliography to create a synthesis of what other scholars have said about your topic and to develop an original question.

What learning goals will I practice during this assignment?

• Learn research practices that will help strengthen your writing and thinking.
• Learn / practice reading strategies to summarize, synthesize, analyze, and critique other people’s arguments and ideas fairly.
• Produce writing that shows how writers may navigate the diverse processes of composing including revision and collaboration

How have students in previous classes approached this assignment?

In the past, students have done research on:

• How course failure in the first year of college impacts future college student graduation rates, attrition, and other outcomes
• How teachers can incorporate more of students’ home languages in the classroom
• The cognitive, economic, or emotional / social benefits of multilingualism
• How (or whether) various forms of digital writing negatively or positively impacts students’ academic writing
• Alternative models of assessment that are not grades
• Attitudes toward plagiarism and cheating in non-US educational contexts
• The relationship between standardized test scores and various measures of “success” in college
• How hip hop has impacted English language learning practices for students whose home language is not English
• ….and many more!

Requirements for this essay: 

1. 5 entries, 150-250 words per entry (750-1,250 words)
2. All annotations must be formatted in MLA, APA, or Chicago style.
3. All annotations must include a summary of the research question in your own words with no more than 2 direct quotes.
4. All annotations must include information about the research method that the original authors of the source used to conduct their research. Keywords should be in direct quotes, and everything else should be in your own words.
5. All annotations must include information about the findings of the research with no more than 2 direct quotes.
6. All annotations must explicitly say how this source helped you to answer or evolve your own research question, and ALSO how the sources in your bibliography relate to one another.
7. Contains a process log and “next steps” reflection that answers all or most of these questions (please answer all questions)
8. You must complete a first draft of the annotated bibliography and process log, submit it through the assignment submission form, and thoroughly fill out the boxes.
9. You must complete a peer review of someone else’s bibliography and log
10. You must complete a final, UPDATED draft of the annotated bibliography and process log, submit it through the assignment submission form, and thoroughly fill out the boxes.

Due dates (note: these are also listed on the course schedule)

Thursday, April 20th

The first draft of the annotated bibliography and process log is due tonight by 11:59pm. We will sign up for peer review and one-on-one conference slots in class today as well.

Tuesday, April 25th

The peer review is due today.

Thursday, April 27th Monday, May 1st (revised)

The final draft is due today. Please remember to update your process log!