Reflective Annotated Bibliography

Project Overview

(Find the Project 2 details)

Our new project begins with us thinking about what issues we see as trending. This is a starting point for us to think about what how each of us might encounter and deal with any of these issues in our work: as a student in your major, as a member of a particular community, as a new professional, or in your dream job later in your career. How will some of the issues we face today affect what you choose to study, the job you do, your ability to do that job, or the trajectory of your life or career? As we come to a consensus on what large topics we will consider for this project, you will look at it from your point of view, asking questions to help you understand, for example, how AI will affect your studies in civil engineering at a college of technology, or how you can speak out about rising costs and stagnant wages when in project management, or what it means to lead the fight for sustainable practices as you lead a project to build a new multi-use space as an architect in New York City, for example?

Project 2 is a research project, which means that you’ll use information you discover from sources of different genres that you find through our library and the internet (or possibly elsewhere) to learn more about your topic. In this project, you will be writing something called an annotated bibliography. You might be familiar with a bibliography, which is a list of the information that tells other people what sources you used (articles, interviews, etc…). An annotated bibliography is useful when researching because in addition to including a list of sources, it also includes a other important notes and information you think is notable about the source.  Annotated bibliographies are helpful tools for research in all fields because they help us keep track of multiple sources and ideas so we can use them later in larger projects. They also help us get a broad understanding of the topic or question we are researching, and help us share that information with our collaborators (in this case, your classmates).

This is not a traditional research essay.  It does not begin with a thesis. Real research requires us to ask questions that we don’t already have the answers to. Doing research to support a position you already have is a persuasive essay, like a persuasive speech you might give in Public Speaking. But more often we don’t already know the end-goal, so we do inquiry-based research in which we develop questions and follow what interests us to learn more and answer our questions.

Students throughout ENG 1101 at City Tech are working on similar projects, to develop reflective annotated bibliographies. That means, for each of your sources, you will write entries that include the citation, plus a brief summary of what the author said, how they said it, why they said it, and who you think they want to read their writing, as well as your reactions to and reflections about the source. We’ll work on this together so you get comfortable working this way.

Important note: for our Project 3, you’ll use the research from Project 2 as you consider producing a text in a different genre, with the goal of teaching someone who needs to know what you learned in a way that is effective for them to learn it. More on Project 3 later, but keep in mind that the topic you choose for Project 2 will stay with you for Project 3 as well.

Brief Project 2 Outline

Your Project 2 reflective annotated bibliography will include:

• An introduction
• An entry for each of the four sources you’ve chosen. Each entry will include
  • the bibliographic entry (in MLA format or otherwise based on what your field uses)
  •  a summary of the source
  • a reflection on how the source is useful
  • a rhetorical analysis of the writing (speaker, audience, tone, genre, etc)
  • an important quotation or two from the source
  • 2-4 keywords that will help others know what the source is about
• a conclusion.

Refer to the Project 2 Reflective Annotated Bibliography Details for more information and guidance. You might also find this guide explaining what an annotated bibliography is and how to create one helpful.

What’s due when?

We’ll have discussions and posts due according to instructions in the weekly agendas. Here’s an outline of the schedule to keep us on track:

SFD of the Introduction: Wednesday, 10/16

Source #1 and SFD of the annotation: Monday, 10/21

Source #2 and SFD of the annotation: Wednesday, 10/23

Source #3 and SFD of the annotation: Monday, 10/28

Source #4 and SFD of the annotation: Wednesday, 10/30

Full drafts of Project 2 will be due on Monday, 11/4 and Wednesday, 11/6. The finished version will be due on Monday, 11/11. Friday, 11/15.

Learning Goals:

In working on Project 2, in addition to learning more about your topic, and hopefully about a field that matters to you, you will develop and expand your skills in the following areas:

• genre awareness
• rhetorical analysis
• summary writing
• reflective writing
• evaluation of sources
• effective internet and library database searching
• information literacy
• working independently and in a working group

What you’ll be graded on:

• Content: Is it readable and informative? Does it demonstrate what you have learned about the topic? Is it detailed and developed enough to reach the goal of 1500-1800 words in length?
• Research: Did you look for sources that don’t just agree with what you thought you would find? Were you open to being surprised and contradicted? Did you look further than the first three results on Google?
• Genre: Remember that your four sources must include at least three different genres.
• Presentation: Can someone else understand what you’ve written? Did you use formatting to help a reader make sense of your writing?
• Citation: If you quote something in your introduction or conclusion that’s from any of your sources or one of our readings, did you cite it? Do your citations include enough information for someone else to find that resource?

Photo credit: “future.world” by d26b73 via Flickr under the license CC BY 2.0.