Unit 2 Reflective Annotated Bilbiography

• printable version:RAB Assignment
• Due date:  November 13.

Unit 2:  Research Project Assignment RAB (1800 words)

In Unit 2 you will research and create an Annotated Bibliography based on a research question you have narrowed down. You’ll use the research you do in Unit 2 to write your assignment for Unit 3.  Unit 2 is connected to Unit 3.  For this reason, it’s important to choose a research question (RQ) that you are sincerely and passionately interested in pursuing throughout both units!

In Unit 2, you will research and create a Reflective Annotated Bibliography (RAB).  An annotated bibliography is a tool writers create when conducting research. This list of sources might contain articles, interviews, or other materials about a specific topic. For each source, there is a summary as well as other notes on that source (reflections, rhetorical analysis, and quotes). Reflective Annotated Bibliographies are helpful tools for research because they help writers keep track of multiple sources and ideas, so they can use them later in larger projects, in your case a Unit Three Genre Project. Reflective Annotated Bibliographies also help writers get a broad understanding of the topic or question they are researching. Annotated bibliographies are used in academic research– but documents like these are used by writers in almost every eld to help them make sense of their research for their future selves, their professors, their bosses, and the committees and groups they work with.

 

THE RESEARCH QUESTION

It’s important to choose a research question (RQ) that you are sincerely and passionately interested in, so think carefully and thoroughly on the RQ you choose.  You will be doing a lot of reading, writing, and thinking about this RQ!

Some ideas from previous semesters:

• How did co-vid affect the Asian community?
• Does music affect mood / mental health? How?
• What are the best habits to incorporate for healthy aging?
• What is the healthiest diet?
• Does dancing improve health? How?
• Is China spying on the USA? Is China an enemy?
• How is AI changing education? Cars and driving? Space?
• How does social media effect mental health?
• Is organic food really better than conventional food?
• How does negative stereotyping affect black youth today?
• Is computer gaming an addiction?
• Is an 8AM school start time good for high school teenagers?

You must fine-tune your question:  the more focused your question the better.  You may start with one question but shift around.  That’s ok in the beginning, but as you start to write the Proposal, you will narrow down and refine and focus that RQ using the Know-What-Learn exercise.   

 

THE SOURCES

To conduct your research, you will consult a variety of print and non-print genres: newspaper and journal articles, interviews, documentaries, songs, poems, government reports, etc. You will use reliable journalism including The New York Times (free subscription with your CUNY email – we signed up at the beginning of semester), The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Guardian. You will use news or university videos (ex Univ of Chicago), ted talks, podcasts, or interviews. You may also use creative art forms. (We will talk about genre awareness together.)

You will find 3 THREE sources.  Note: having a variety of genres — print and non-print — is important.

1. One Feature Article — OR — One News Report
2. One Opinion / Editorial piece
3. One non-print source (TEDtalk, podcast, interview, documentary or news video clip or university website video) or creative source (art, photography)

THE REFLECTIVE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPH Y (RAB)

For Unit 2, our goal is to create a reflective annotated bibliography (RAB) of your 4 sources.

• A bibliography is a list of sources that one consults in a research process.
• A Reflective Annotated Bibliography (RAB) includes more information about each source, including a summary, important quotes, rhetorical analysis, and response.

What are the parts of a RAB?

Your annotated bibliography will be approximately 1800 words and will include the following:

• Your research question at the top of the page.
• An introduction: introduce your question, explain why this question intrigues you, and say what you expect to find in your research (approx. 300 words).
• MLA bibliographic citations for three sources. 
  • You can find more on how to do MLA citations at this Purdue OWL link and throughout the Purdue OWL site.
  • You can also use Purdue OWL, Easy Bib, or Citation Machine to do your citations—you can google for the second two sites and the first is at the link above.
  • The City Tech Writing Center can also help you with citations. Send an email requesting an appointment to CityTechWritingCenter@gmail.com
• Three source entries (approx. 300 words) includes the following:
  • MLA citation
  • a summary of the source’s content.
  • a brief rhetorical analysis: for example, who is the author?  Is the author credible?  What is genre?  What is the purpose?
  • a couple of key quotes you might want to use later.

Note: Each of these three sources will be a different genre.  Examples of genres and media include: newspaper articles, TED Talks, podcasts, personal essays, documentaries, magazine articles, scholarly articles, museum websites, interviews, video, songs, etc.

• (finally) A Reflection/Conclusion to end the RAB(approx. 200-300 words):

WHAT DO YOU THINK about the main ideas in the sources?  What do you think about the new knowledge you have gained?  Do you agree or disagree with the points in your sources? How did your thinking change? Why is the research you found important? Who do you think would benefit from your research? What is the importance of your research?

 

 

GETTING STARTED — PROPOSAL

Write a paragraph in which you address the following questions:

• What is the topic that interests you? Why does it interest you?
• What do you already know about it? What do you want to explore further and find out?

This paragraph is your proposal now and later will become your RAB introduction.  Use the following template:

My research question is: ___________ (plug in your research question)? This topic interests me because ______________ (good solid explanation – 3 more sentences). I already know that ____________.  (3 more sentences). Some points that I plan to explore and find out more about are _________ (at least 3 points).

NOTICE:  Your proposal should explain a personal reasoning and connection to your RQ. Why are YOU personally interested in this RQ?  Your proposal is just that a proposal, therefore it is written BEFORE you do the research!  Your proposal should not have researching-sounding-speak.

 

WORK ON RAB SOURCE ENTRIES

1. Begin researching your topic and possible sources. What are some possible sources you could consult (newspaper articles, editorials, interviews, podcasts, songs, documentaries)?
2. We will work on each source entry one by one. Two (2) from periodical journalism newspaper. One from a non-print source.

 

FINALLY — The Conclusion for the Entire RAB Document

 

After completing all three (3) of your Source Entries — RAB Source Entry #1, #2, and #3, you will write a conclusion.

Write a reflection/conclusion paragraph for the entire RAB document.

What do YOU think about the main points from the entirety of your research? In this final section, you will finally use the word “I” because here you must tell me what you think!  What is your opinion about the information you have learned?  Has your thinking changed?  How?  Why is the research you found important?  Who or what group would be the ideal audience for your research?  Why would this audience benefit from your research?  What genre will you choose to present your research?

(at least 350 words)

 

What you’ll be graded on:

• Content: Is it readable and informative? Does it teach us about the topic?
• Research: Did you dig deep? Were you open to being surprised and contradicted? Did you look further than the first three hits on Google?
• Genre: Remember that your three sources must be different genres. And you must have a personal interview.
• Presentation: Basically, can someone who is not you make sense of this visually? Did you use subheads for each part (or make other formatting choices) to help a reader make sense of your document?
• Citation: If you quote something in your introduction or conclusion that’s from one or more of your sources, be sure to cite it.
• Grammar, sentence structure, punctuation.

 

 

 

MORE BELOW – SCROLL DOWN

 

 

 

Note:  Below is a template for your annotated bibliography. This will help you organize and format your annotated bibliography.

Reflective Annotated Bibliography Template  (1200-1800 words total)

The document below is designed to help you break down this assignment, so you can clearly see what is expected in each section.

Introduction (approx. 200-300 words)

• Introduce your question.
• Explain how or why you got interested in your question.
• Write this in paragraph format (1-3 paragraphs).

Three Source Entries (approx. 200-300 words each). 

You need three source entries.

• Use three sources.
• Be sure each source is a different genre.
• Include an entry for each source (direction for entries are below).
• Include all four parts for each entry (MLA citation, summary, rhetorical analysis, and quotes).

How do I write an entry?

Part 1:  MLA Citation

The first part of your entry will be the MLA style bibliographic citation for your source. The citation gives the publication information, author, date, title, and so forth. There are many websites (like easybib.com) that can help you do this. Here is one example of a citation:

Yang, Andrew. “We Are Not the Virus But We Can Be Part of the Cure.” 1 Apr 2020 The Washington Post. The Washington Post. Web. 2 Apr 2020.  www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/01/andrew-yang-coronavirus-discrimination/

Part 2: Summary

For the second part of your entry (right beneath the citation), you will write a summary. This will be useful for remembering what you read. The summary should convey what the author states in the article and not your opinions. Write what you think the main point is, but also what you think the most important points are (these aren’t always the same.) This is also a good time to make note of what data, facts, and evidence the author uses to support his/her claims, and how s/he uses this evidence to arrive at conclusions.

Part 2 Summary will be approximately a paragraph long.

Part 3:  Rhetorical Analysis 

Here you will consider genre, writing style, purpose, and author’s credentials.   Write one paragraph of 4-5 sentences. Use this Rhetorical Analysis Worksheet  RhetoricalGenreAnalysisWorksheet (also on Research Project Resources page)

• What is the genre?
• Who is the author?  Is the author credible?
• Describe the author’s writing style, tone, attitude.
• Consider the rhetorical appeals of ethos, pathos, logos and show where the author used these or this appeal.
• What is the author’s intended audience and purpose (reason for writing)?  Who do you think is the author targets as his/her primary audience?  What message does the author want the reader to take away?
• Occasion:  Is there some significant event happening that is the cause for this source to be written now?  Upon what occasion is this being written now?
• Source Credibility: Is the source (newspaper/magazine/organization) credible?  Explain why author and source are reliable.  Google the newspaper/magazine/organization and the author to find background facts.
• Currency: Is this information current? Does the time it was written matter?

Rhetorical Analysis is one paragraph.

 

Part 4: Notable Quotables

Quotations: Make a note of at least THREE  direct quotes from each source that you feel really exemplifies the document’s claims or interpretations or that you feel is important or useful in some way. Be sure to put the quote in quotation marks and note the page number if a book or just the author name if an article.

“Put the quoted words here” (Smith 45).

 

THEN, at the end after all three source entries, you will write a Reflection / Conclusion for the entire RAB.

Reflection / Conclusion (approx. 350 words):

After completing all three (3) of your Source Entries — RAB Source Entry #1, #2, and #3 — each of your 3 source entries is 200 to 300 words — you will write a conclusion for the entire RAB document. 

The Reflection / Conclusion Part is the most important part, so don’t skimp here!  This is where you respond to your research and give your opinion and your own original thinking. After doing your research, you should have some new ideas or thoughts.  I want to see your own original thinking here.  Beware:  If all you are doing is repeating the MI’s then you are on the wrong track.  This is a not another summary! 

Choose from any of these questions to write your Reflection / Conclusion.

• What do you think about the main points that you learned?
• What surprised you, or how your understanding of your question deepened or changed.
• Do your sources give similar points or do they contradict each other?  What do you think?
• Do you agree or disagree with any specific information that the authors presented? Why or why not? Be specific!
• Reflect on the new information you learned and ADD your own thinking. What further ideas, questions, thoughts do you have?
• Is there a significant quote from one of your sources that you want to discuss?  Do it here.  Use the Quote Sandwich.
• What other information do you need to look up to better understand this topic?
• Explain why the research you found is important.
• Explain who or what group would be the ideal audience for your research?  Why would this audience benefit from your research?  (The answer cannot be “everyone needs to know.” That is too big of an audience.)  Narrow it down to who needs to hear about it first or the most!
• What genre will you choose to present your research for your Unit Three project?

 

Here are some global comments I have for everyone on your on-going work for Source Entry writings.

On Summary writing:   

• HINT – If an article has subheadings, use the subheads to find one main point in each subhead section.  Then gather those points together to become your summary.
• USE the title of the source article. The words in the title are a clue to the MI of the article.  If the title is “Four Ways to Happiness,” then your summary should include a MI explaining the Four Ways.  If the title is “The Secret to Success: Hope Molecules,” then your summary should explain what Hope Molecules are and how that contributes to success.  It’s a MI!
• When I read your summary, I should know what the article is about.  I should NOT have to read the article myself!  SO — If you have written a good summary, there will be NO need to for me to read the article.
• OF course, you CANNOT put every single thing into the SUMMARY.  It is your job to select the MIs judiciously (using good judgement).  A summary should be proportionate in length to the length of the source.  A summary of a book is long, but a summary for a newspaper article should be a paragraph.

On Rhetorical Analysis

• Add the date of the article to your analysis.  This will help you decide if the information is current or not.  This makes sense especially in the case of choosing a source (an article is your source) that is dated from a few years back.

OVERALL

These four parts are different and distinct.  SO for example — There should not be a bunch of quotes in the Rhetorical Analysis.  The quotes belong in the the Quotables Part IV.  There should not be a lot of MIs in the Rhetorical Analysis.  The MI belong in the Summary!  There should be no “I” until the ending Reflection / Conclusion.  You don’t give your opinion until the Concluding part.

The writing needs to be clearly written. READ your writing out loud to yourself, to your mom, to a friend.  Read exactly what you have written.  You will hear the errors in your writing.  You will hear the words you left out.  You will hear what sounds off.