Due on Carmen by midnight on Wednesday, September 18
Choose a topic for your first paper and write annotations of five scientific articles related
to your topic (at least six sentences per article entry). State your topic in at the top of your
annotated bibliography. Then, research the existing scholarly literature to find academic
studies that relate to your topic. I will go over some of the sources you will likely find
helpful in class. At least three of these must be from sources outside the syllabus.
Your annotations should answer questions such as these (not necessarily literally, use your
judgment about what information is appropriate for you):
(a) What is the main thesis of the article? Summarize its conclusions in a couple of sentences.
(b) Who is the author? Has s/he written other articles or books on similar topics?
(c) What kind of journal is the article published in? Who is its audience?
(d) What is the scope of the article? Does it present a broad overview? Does it zero in on
a very specific topic?
The purpose of this assignment is to get you started researching a topic you are interested
in for your first paper. Therefore, both in your annotations and in your own thinking about
your topic, it is critical that you research articles that are relevant to your topic. The
relevance to your topic may take many different forms – the article may be theoretically
informative, methodologically informative, or both. It may be on another, related topic, but
use similar techniques or develop theory in a way that is informative to your topic. However,
the reasons for which this article is helpful as you work to research the existing research
related to your topic is critical.
You will also probably find it helpful to search for both “foundational” research studies
and more recent research. Foundational studies are likely to be older and to have influenced
later research areas. More recent research is more likely to have cutting edge techniques that
build on earlier, more foundational work. You do not need to research both of these types
of articles for the annotated bibliography, but you should do so for your paper. Therefore,
it would be wise to begin to note relationships between existing scholarship as you research
your bibliography.
Sample Solution
