The sources that you collect and evaluate for possible use in the Argumentative Research Paper will be put into a formal list. You may or may not end up using all of the sources listed, but there should be 20 entries, all clearly relevant to your topic.

Each source will be listed in MLA citation format. For MLA formatting see Rules for Writers, 458-525, and our library’s home page under “Citing Sources,” MLA.

Each item you collect should conform to these criteria:
• The item can conceivably be used in your paper—quoted or paraphrased.
• The item must come from a reliable source of information.
• The item must be from any generally acceptable medium—periodical, book, electronic source, interview, recording, etc.—though I expect there to be a special emphasis in your list on scholarly journal articles found in our library’s databases and/or periodical holdings. I strongly urge you not to use information from informal blog postings, reader comments pages, wikipedia, and other unfiltered sources.

10 of your 20 items, require an annotation.
• The annotation itself consists of, basically, three parts:
1. a sentence or two about the rhetorical context,
2. a capsule summary of the content,
3. a note about the source’s value or how you might use it.
• Generally, for this assignment, the annotation portion of each entry should be approximately 100 words long. I recommend that you choose to annotate the 10 sources that you think, at this point, are the most valuable to your paper.

Format for the list:
• Bibliography will contain a minimum of 20 items.
• Entries will be alphabetized, not numbered.
• Bibliography will be typed and double-spaced. First line of each entry is flush left; subsequent lines tabbed in once.