According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary:
An Annotated Bibliography is most closely associated with definition 2a above, a list of works with descriptive or critical notes.
“Information Literacy” is a term that describes the process of finding, evaluating, and effectively using information. In our case it would be for historical research but it can be used in any academic (or personal) situation. To help you learn how to access, evaluate, and use information well, do the following assignment.
Listed below are some research topics. I want you to find, cite, and evaluate five sources on one of them. You will not write a research paper over the topic but you will produce an annotated bibliography of your sources. [See the note following the assignment about what that is if you don’t know already.] Three of these sources must be printed books you find in one of the TCC campus libraries. (Do not use ebooks or web-based sources.)
I want you to give me the citation and the library call number of each book so I can find it if necessary. Evaluate the academic qualifications of the author(s) of each book and tell me how many chapters there are as well as naming some that seem appropriate to the topic. List your books together under the heading “Books.”
The other two sources are to be found in periodicals from the TCC online databases. The same rule applies here as with the books—the ones you cite will be the ones I grade so you should use quality sources (no popular periodicals or encyclopedias) As with books, list these two together under the heading “Articles.”
Use the MLA style sheet as your guide. Your grade will be based on 1) citing the correct number of books and articles required; 2) the quality of your sources as they relate to the topic you choose; and 3) your comments in the annotation.
This assignment is due no later than 6:00 am on October 22. Submit it as a word file as part of your Unit III grade.
Note: Normally an annotated bibliography is written by someone who has read the entire book and can give a synopsis of its contents. I know you will not have time to do that but you can look at the table of contents and the index to see how relevant it is to your topic. You can read selected parts to see how well it reads and if it addresses what you think it does. You can check the credentials of the author(s) and comment on that. The link below is to the Cornell University Library which is my source for the definition of an annotated bibliography. You should follow this link for more information.
http://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/ref/research/skill28.htm
“An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief (usually about 150 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited.”