Tag: Annotated bibliography

How does being in the foster care system affect children’s happiness later on in life?

“Step 1: Finding Sources

For most academic writing, you should be using peer-reviewed, scholarly articles from books or journals, although some websites, newspaper articles, and other journals may be appropriate if they pass the CRAAP test.

You can use the Granite State College’s Discovery Service in the Library to find these types of sources.

If you choose to do an internet search, be careful. Just as you should always be evaluating the relevance of your sources in any situation, it is important that you evaluate all sources for validity.

go to the Excelsior Online Writing Lab website (Links to an external site.) on Evaluating Sources to learn the pitfalls of using online articles.

Utilizing the library databases, you should search for scholarly articles, reports, and books reflecting your topic., no Wikipedia referencing is permitted, and no encyclopedia sources should be used in the annotated bibliography. Keep your references alphabetized, double spaced, and with a hanging indent, as is required in APA formatting.

It is fine if you decide not to use one of your sources for your final paper, however you should use this week to do much of your exploratory research into your topic.

Step 2: Evaluate Sources

Second, you will evaluate your sources. To help with this, ask yourself the following questions: How relevant to the question at hand are these resources? Are they current? Are they credible enough for you to base important decisions on? Do these sources pass the test for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose?

Is the information credible, and does it contribute to your understanding of your research question? Answers to these questions should be included in your annotated bibliography for each source.

NOTE: your annotated bibliography entries should answer the relevant questions from the CRAAP test.

It is better to spend more time explaining how the source will support your main points rather than answering ten questions about authority and accuracy in one paragraph. Use your judgment to best evaluate and present these sources.

Keep in mind that the best sources will not always be the first six you find! You should spend a fair bit of time exploring the research in your topic to get a sense of what information is out there.

Step 3: Writing the Annotated Bibliography

Provide an introduction that includes your research question and what you plan on exploring. The paragraph should introduce the topic as a whole and what you are learning from your research.

Use the introduction to help you formulate your main points for the paper and how the sources support these claims/arguments.

Each annotation will include the following information written in paragraph form using complete sentences:

a summary of the resource’s content and main points,

How well the resource meets the criteria on our validity checklist (CRAAP test),

its relevance to your topic and a brief discussion of how it would support your main points,

Step 4: Formatting

Your annotated bibliography should use APA-style formatting and include six credible sources. go to the Excelsior Online Writing Lab website (Links to an external site.) on Evaluating Sources to determine what a credible source is.

For details on how to cite your sources, go to the Purdue Online Writing Lab (Links to an external site.) website.

Note: consult the Annotated Bibliography grading for details on how your assignment will be graded. Additional points may be taken off if you do not meet the minimum requirements (i.e. not providing six reputable sources) or submit your assignment late.