Project III: Evaluative Annotated Bibliography of Research

Project III: Annotated Bibliography – 3 sources (20% of your final grade)
Group Conference: October 28^th                                                                                                  Draft due: November 4th                                                                                                                        Final due: November 7th

Assignment:
Produce an evaluative annotated bibliography that collects, summarizes, and explains the best secondary sources available on your narrowed topic (there will also be an in-class research presentation, five minutes in length, worth 5% of your final grade). Many of the sources collected will be scholarly. The annotated bibliography will 1) summarize the source; 2) analyze its rhetorical context (the journal and its audience, the purpose of the article, the conversation/debate it references, its genre conventions, its organization, the evidence it marshals in support of its argument, and/or its disciplinary assumptions and values); and 3) articulate the ways the source helps you understand your research topic in all of its complexity.

Requirements:
The bibliography should contain 3 or more sources, each with a correct citation, and 1) a paragraph telling the reader the main argument and main points of the article; 2) a longer second paragraph analyzing the rhetorical context (the journal and its audience, the purpose of the article, the conversation/debate it references, its genre conventions, its organization, the evidence it marshals in support of its argument, and/or its disciplinary assumptions and values); and 3) a final paragraph evaluating the source (why you chose this article and how it adds to your understanding of your research topic). You will need to include copies of all your sources. See example below.

Downs, Doug and Elizabeth Wardle. “Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions:
(Re)Envisioning ‘First Year Composition’ as ‘Introduction to Writing Studies.’” College
Composition and Communication 58.4 (2007): 552-585. Web. 10 Feb. 2011.
In this article, Doug Downs and Elizabeth Wardle propose a new model for first-year writing classes. They argue that these classes should take writing studies as their content and that doing so will benefit not only students but the discipline itself. They contend that the topic of the writing class should be a study of writing; students should read and discuss and research issues involving “writing, rhetoric, language and literacy” (553). They cite research that shows that students are not transferring the lessons they learn in first-year writing classes to other writing situations (in other classes), and believe that it is because these first-year writing lessons don’t necessarily apply to other situations (556-557); they contend that a better strategy would be to teach “realistic and useful conception of writing – perhaps the most significant of which is that writing is neither basic nor universal but content- and context-contingent and irreducibly complex” (557-558), a strategy that requires students study and write about writing rather than about other topics. They trace the success of their own pilot “writing about writing” courses, providing case studies that show that the curriculum works for underprepared students as well as honors students (564-573).
The article is aimed at writing teachers and perhaps faculty who make curriculum decisions for first-year composition. The articles wants to convince this audience to adopt the proposed curriculum and does this by drawing on research that calls into question the efficacy of the curriculum of most first-year writing programs. It also addresses debates about the low status of the discipline in the academy, arguing that the proposed curriculum will help remedy this low status. The writers also directly address critics of the new curriculum, arguing against their objections one by one. The article is arranged first to argue for the curriculum using already-published and accepted research, then to describe in detail the proposed curriculum, then to report on case studies of classes that taught the new curriculum, and then to argue against critic’s objections. The article does not directly follow the social science model (literature review, describe experiment, data from experiment, discuss conclusions based on data), but it does loosely follow this model and is tightly structured with subheadings. The writers refer to themselves by their last names or by “we,” especially in the case study portion of the article and at the beginning of a section when they outline what they will do in that section. They also quote heavily from their students’ own writing as proof that students did learn important lessons in the new curriculum – showing that the article values first-hand experience of teachers (this is the largest section in the article at nearly 9 pages in length).

This article is incredibly useful in my study of what skills students can take with them from their first-year writing classes. It provides a discussion of why students can’t transfer many of the lessons they learn in learn in many first-year writing to their other classes (academic discourse is not one thing) and it helps me understand how rhetorical knowledge and an appreciation of the complexity of writing is something they can take with them. The case study examples, in particular, are useful in helping me see what students learned that will be helpful to them later.

Process:
Develop a narrowed research topic and focused research question
Find articles using library databases pertinent to your topic (ProQuest and Academic Search Complete)
Adapt research topic based on your findings
Read, summarize, analyze, and evaluate sources
Meet in mini-group conferences to discuss research progress (bring one complete annotation for instructor feedback)                                                                                                                                       Draft annotations (3) for peer review source workshop
Revise using peer feedback and submit as final draft (include copies of all your sources)
Present research to class in mini presentation (5 min.)
Grading:
Annotated bibliographies will be evaluated on how relevant the sources are to each other and to the narrowed topic at hand. They will also be evaluated on the degree to which they fully engage these sources in the paragraphs that summarize and analyze it. Grading will be based on the following:

Paper includes:

*3 Source Annotations—sources should be substantial in perspective (such as a feature article in a newspaper or magazine) or in depth of research (such as an academic article), and each annotation should be substantial in length (1 – 1 1/2 pages).

• sources are secondary rather than primary
• on same narrowed topic as other sources in annotated bibliography.
• reflect the evaluative criteria discussed in class (recent, published by reputable source, written by an expert in the field)
• citations are in correct MLA format and quoting/paraphrasing is done accurately and ethically
• each citation contains: (1) a first paragraph that summarizes the source. The main argument and main points are explained; (2) a second longer paragraph in which you analyze the rhetorical context of the article; and (3) a third and final paragraph that evaluates how the source helps you understand your narrowed topic in all its complexity.

A few things to consider as we enter this final phase in the course…

• Project III helps you complete Project IV (a position paper on your research topic); it requires you to construct a bibliography of the best sources on a topic you discovered when reading Ford’s short stories or novel. You will annotate your sources with (1) a summary of the content of each text that you have discovered for your research; (2) your analysis of the rhetorical conventions of each source; and (3) an evaluation that discusses how each source helps you understand your topic in all its complexity. Project III is more than a step towards Project IV, however, (and is, in fact, worth more than Project IV). This is your chance to learn more about a topic you discovered in Richard Ford’s short stories or his novel The Sportswriter.

• You will present your research on Project III during your in-class presentation. Outstanding presenters will be selected to present at the student conference. Presentation experience looks awesome on a resume!

• Project IV is asking you to take a stand or position on the topic of interest that you found in Ford’s short stories or novel and researched for Project III.

• For your final exam grade, you will participate in a conference of the type that your professors do in their fields of interest. You will play the various roles—presenter, panelist, facilitator, and so on—that career scholars do in their work.

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