PSY101 - Introduction to Psychology

The Online Writing Lab at Purdue is the online bible of citation style, so check out their description and examples.

The 5Ws help to evaluate any source you want to use.

Who? Who is the author, how are they an authority on this topic?

What? What's this publication really about? How is it relevant to YOUR paper? What's the purpose of the article? To persuade or to inform? What is the author's tone?

When? When was this document published? How soon after the events happened? This helps to understand the context.

Where? Where was this piece published? A newspaper, journal, book, blog? Does the publication reveal something about the bias of the author or of the publisher?

Why? Describe the purpose of this document? Who is the intended audience? Why does it enhance your paper?

Annotated bibiographies are designed to help you be selective about your sources. They encourage you to find, summarize, and evaluate only the best sources on your topic and prepare you to more easily organize your paper.

Basically, it's a reference page or works cited page with a short paragraph describing each source. 

There are three parts to an annotated entry in a bibliography:

1. A citation for the source done in the chosen citation style (APA, MLA, etc.)
2. A summary of the source: one or two sentences describing the source: what information it covers, and the purpose of the source.
3. An evaluation of the source: this can include an assessment of the expertise of the author, an evaluation of the scope of the work, etc. Is the source useful? Current? Reliable? Authoritative? Accurate? Fact or opinion? Also, you can include an assessment on the significance of the source as it relates to your topic. Usually an evaluation is two to three sentences long.

Good Annotation:

Hock, S., & Rochford, R. A. (2010). A letter-writing campaign: linking academic success and civic

            engagement. Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, 3(2), 76+. Retrieved from

            http://go.galegroup.com

Two two classes of developmental writing students were engaged in a service-learning project to support the preservation of an on-campus historical site. The goal of the assignment was to help students to see how they may assert influence on their community by acting as engaged citizens, and simultaneously to improve their scores on the ACT Writing Sample Assessment (WSA) exam. 

The authors candid description of the flaws and strengths of their project would be advantageous to other instructors who would like to implement a similar assignment. Many students enrolled in developmental classes often feel disempowered, especially when English is not their first language. This assignment not only assisted them in elevating their written communication skills, it gave real-life significance to the assignment, and by extension made them feel as empowered members of the community. The number of students enrolled in this project was small, however, and it would be beneficial to see more statistically verifiable results in addition to the qualitative results which were overwhelmingly positive.

Bad Annotation:

Hock, S., & Rochford, R. A. (2010). A letter-writing campaign: linking academic success and civic

            engagement. Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, 3(2), 76+. Retrieved from

            http://go.galegroup.com

Two ELL classes complete a service learning project and improve their writing scores.

This article was good because it provided me with lots of information I can use. The students learned a lot in their service learning project and they passed the ACT exam. 

Your task before you leave today is to complete one annotation. Use the attached template to complete this assignment.