I’m working on a writing discussion question and need an explanation to help me study.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

For the final project of the course, students will complete an annotated bibliography comprised of eight (8) entries. The purpose of the assignment is for students to gain familiarity with the state of current research relating to their areas of interest. Additionally, students will practice assessing the quality and value of sources pertaining to their topics.

First, students will select a research topic relating to some aspect of pop culture. The topic should be broad enough so that students will find at least eight quality sources related to it, but not so broad that the volume of research material is overwhelming.

Acceptable topics include:

-How have representations of same-sex couples on television changed?

-Have Americans become more or less well-informed since the rise of cable news?

-The relationship between video game violence and violent crime in the real world.

-What will the future of the recording industry look like?

-The influence of hip hop culture on mainstream fashion.

Unacceptable topics include:

-The History of TV shows.

-Kanye West is the greatest living musician.

-Why do cartoon characters always wear the same clothes in every episode?

-Game of Thrones

-That guy in The Dark Knight who gets killed and doesn’t have any lines.

(students may not use any of the above examples as topics)

After students have selected a topic, they will then search for sources (books and academic journal articles) that will contribute to their further understanding of said topic. Students must restrict their sources to books and journals found in the school library as well as articles found on the library’s academic databases.

There are two parts to every entry in an annotated bibliography: the citation and the annotation.

Students will format their bibliographic citations based on the MLA format, of which examples are provided below.

Each citation will be accompanied by an annotation, a 100-200 word summary and analysis of the source, of which examples are provided below. Annotations should summarize the content of the source while also describing its value in the field of research and the credibility of the source.

The central questions to answer in the annotation are “What does this source say?” (summary) and “Why is this source worth including in a research paper?” (evaluation)

An excellent resource for MLA style is: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/