English and Literature MLA

ARP Step 2: The Annotated Bibliography

Your work should be single-spaced, typed in 12-point font, and set to 1 margins.

Objectives:
Find three or four secondary sources that are timely, useful, credible, and relevant to your primary source. Your work with these sources should help you revise and extend the work you completed in Step 1: Primary Source Analysis
At least one of your sources should be from a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal (we will discuss what this means in class)
Correctly use MLA Works Cited list format
Demonstrate the ability to comprehend the central arguments of these sources
Describe the sources relevance to your main argument
For each source, create a correctly formatted Works Cited entry in MLA style. See the MLA Handbook or the Purdue OWL (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/) for details
After each entry, write a paragraph of at least 4-5 sentences that includes:
A description of the source (where it comes from, who wrote it, how a reader might determine its reliability, etc.)
A detailed summary of the authors main argument. For instance, do not simply say that an article is about personal confidence. What, specifically, does the article say about personal confidence?
An explanation of how the source relates to your argument. For instance, you might explain how this source supports, complicates, or disagrees with your claims, or you may describe which aspects of the sources argument relate to your argument
Getting Started:
Be sure that you understand the difference between a primary and a secondary source. See The Writers Companion, pg. 53 for help.
Use your research question(s) from Step 1 to begin your search for secondary sources. For example, if you asked a question about how advertisers appeal to women, you might research secondary sources relating to gender or womens studies. Keep in mind that research is not an exact science. Be patient and flexible throughout the process.
Employ the OSU Libraries website–including databases such as Academic Search Complete, Lexis Nexis, or Google Scholar, as well as WorldCat@OSU–to find useful, timely, relevant, and credible electronic or print sources (see the library link on our course Carmen page for a list of databases).
Choose three or four secondary sources (articles from newspapers, magazines, or academic journals; books or book chapters; credible websites; television, film, or radio pieces, etc.) that you believe will relate to, support, or complicate claims you made in Step 1. Read these sources carefully to determine the authors main points and their relevance to your argument.