Asian American Studies
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Final Project Development Assignment 2: Annotated Bibliography
This document is due as a printed document by the start of class on Thursday, February 15., -OR- you may submit this document as a digital file (Microsoft Word, Google Doc, or PDF file) to the Titanium Assignment Space (before 11:25am that day). 1. SHORT IDENTIFICATION: Create a succinct description of your project that quickly lets your reader “see” your project and understand why it needs to be researched. Length: 2-3 sentences. 2. RESEARCH CHRONOLOGIES: OPTIONAL
a. Identify the major events in your subject history, with an awareness of your subject’s development before the point at which your story events begin. b. Include relevant happenings at the local, national, and world level. Depending on how your project is situating particular frameworks for your study objectives, your chronology lines may seek to investigate political, military, immigration, social, economic, technical/science, etc. events to historicize and contextualize your case. This may be easier to track by making a grid or separate columns. c. If you have a main character, provide a time line for their life history.
3. Provide an ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY that presents the range and forms of evidence you can draw upon to present accurate and balanced points of view. Do not include any reference that has not been personally inspected (for instance, including a book title without understanding the book’s specific usefulness to your project). Minim um num ber of sources: At least two peer-reviewed sources, and two primary sources. (Researchers are encouraged to incorporate additional resources by the time of submission of the final project.) Samples of Student-produced annotated bibliographies are available at the Titanium class site.
• Peer-reviewed sources are typically articles from scholarly journals or books from university presses.
• Primary sources can be letters, census data, newspapers, works of art, your original ethnographic data like field observations, interviews, items from CSUF Archive Collections, etc..
* You may draw on assigned course readings for your project study, but these will not count toward your list of personally-curated sources. Format for Annotated Bibliographies: Use standard MLA or APA format for the citations, then add a brief abstract for each entry, including:
* One or two sentences to summarize the main idea(s) of the item, and * One or two sentences to relate the article to your research topic, your personal experience, or your future goals or to add a critical description.
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The benefits to doing research and making time lines is not just to secure a solid foundation on the topics raised in your project, but also to find information that surprises and challenges.
How do you know if you’re accessing more than one understanding of your subject? Here are some questions that, after research, you should be able to address: ! What is the popular discourse around my subject? (fiction accounts,
websites, print journalism, etc.) ! What major organizations address my issue and what are their
stances on it? ! How has this issue made national headlines, and when was the last
time legislation was passed, proposed, or amended? ! What sorts of debates emerged around such news stories or laws, and
what were the primary arguments and forms of evidence? ! What have previous scholars theorized about this topic? Have these
understandings changed over time? (Adapted from Broderick Fox, Documentary Media: History, Theory and Practice, p.71)
Our campus library specialists have provided an in-class orientation on how to search in more than one database. Start familiarizing yourself with existing scholarship, news and primary accounts so your project bibliography reflects a strong balance of knowledge to inform your work. Annotated Bibliography Samples Media File: Annotated Bibliography Samples
Overview Below you will find sample annotations from annotated bibliographies, each with a different research project. Remember that the annotations you include in your own bibliography should reflect your research project and/or the guidelines of your assignment.
As mentioned elsewhere in this resource, depending on the purpose of your bibliography, some annotations may summarize, some may assess or evaluate a source, and some may reflect on the source’s possible uses for the project at hand. Some annotations may address all three of these steps. Consider the purpose of your annotated bibliography and/or your instructor’s directions when deciding how much information to include in your annotations.
Please keep in mind that all your text, including the write-up beneath the citation, must be indented so that the author’s last name is the only text that is flush left.
Sample MLA Annotation
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books,
1995.
Lamott’s book offers honest advice on the nature of a writing life, complete
with its insecurities and failures. Taking a humorous approach to the realities
of being a writer, the chapters in Lamott’s book are wry and anecdotal and offer
advice on everything from plot development to jealousy, from perfectionism to
struggling with one’s own internal critic. In the process, Lamott includes
writing exercises designed to be both productive and fun.
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Lamott offers sane advice for those struggling with the anxieties of writing,
but her main project seems to be offering the reader a reality check regarding
writing, publishing, and struggling with one’s own imperfect humanity in the
process. Rather than a practical handbook to producing and/or publishing, this
text is indispensable because of its honest perspective, its down-to-earth
humor, and its encouraging approach.
Chapters in this text could easily be included in the curriculum for a writing
class. Several of the chapters in Part 1 address the writing process and would
serve to generate discussion on students’ own drafting and revising processes.
Some of the writing exercises would also be appropriate for generating classroom
writing exercises. Students should find Lamott’s style both engaging and
enjoyable.
[Instructor’s NOTE: In the sample annotation above, the writer includes three paragraphs: a summary, an evaluation of the text, and a reflection on its applicability to his/her own research, respectively.]
Sample APA Annotation
Ehrenreich, B. (2001). Nickel and dimed: On (not) getting by in America. New
York: Henry Holt and Company.
In this book of nonfiction based on the journalist’s experiential research,
Ehrenreich attempts to ascertain whether it is currently possible for an
individual to live on a minimum-wage in America. Taking jobs as a waitress, a
maid in a cleaning service, and a Walmart sales employee, the author summarizes
and reflects on her work, her relationships with fellow workers, and her
financial struggles in each situation.
An experienced journalist, Ehrenreich is aware of the limitations of her
experiment and the ethical implications of her experiential research tactics and
reflects on these issues in the text. The author is forthcoming about her
methods and supplements her experiences with scholarly research on her places of
employment, the economy, and the rising cost of living in America. Ehrenreich’s
project is timely, descriptive, and well-researched.
[Instructor’s NOTE: The annotation above both summarizes and assesses the book in the citation. The first paragraph provides a brief summary of the author’s project in the book, covering the main points of the work. The second paragraph points out the project’s strengths and evaluates its methods and presentation. This particular annotation does not reflect on the source’s potential importance or usefulness for this person’s own research. [Our class assignment requires this to be included.]
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/jc Source notes: Annotated Bibliography Samples. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/03/ Copyright ©1995-2017 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University.
