Annotated Bibliography

The purpose of the annotated bibliography is to assist you in developing research analysis skills, including critical thinking and writing. The annotated bibliography should include the following information for each source:

1. Name of the article, including the complete bibliographic citation, using APA format
2. Summary/abstract of the article—annotation. Sometimes it is helpful to ask yourself the following questions in synthesizing the information:
   • Who? (author)
   • What was done? (e.g., an experimental study investigating the interaction of short-term memory and attention)
   • How? (was it done)
   • What were the findings? (identify the major ones)
   • Contributions? (new findings, applications, etc.)

To conduct accurate research for the annotated bibliographies consider the following:

1. Research in peer-reviewed journals or other journals that are considered to have reliable information. (Do not use sources from the secular press, i.e., Time, Newsweek, or Wikipedia.)
2. You need at least six articles from professional scholarly journals, three of which come from the Ashford University Library. If you do find something on the World Wide Web, it must be authored and be a reliable source.
3. In these journals, the research and information is either reviewed by an editorial team (such as for the Academy of Management Review) or a group of peers (as in many journals you find through the Ashford University Library).
4. See the Sample Annotated Bibliography in the Ashford Writing Center.

The paper must be at least three pages in length (excluding the title and reference pages) and formatted according to APA style. You must use at least six scholarly resources, at least three of which can be found in the Ashford University Library. For information regarding APA samples and tutorials, visit the Ashford Writing Center within the Learning Resources tab on the left navigation toolbar.

The evolution of military education is rather fascinating when you really dive into it. Your points on the comparison between ancient military education and today is very accurate. As you put it, this seems to be a transition between the physical and the intellectual although anyone serving in today’s military will argue it is still about the physical conditioning to fight.

Helmuth von Moltke (the Elder) began to change how the Prussian (and German) military approached education with the study of the military plans of potential enemy’s such as France. By the American Civil War, our military education at West Point seemed to focus a substantial amount of time on the science of war; artillery, topography, mathematics, ect., (Freeman, n.d.). Two areas that seem to be lacking are leadership and critical thinking development, or at least an overt effort to develop these skills as we see in today’s military education.

How do you think the lack of focus by our military academies on these to areas in particular impacted, say Civil War commanders, ability to lead in combat with the onset of war. After all, many of the significant military commanders in the Civil War experienced combat in the Mexican-American War.