ASSIGNMENT 2 FINAL PROJECT ANALYTICAL ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY, DUE SUNDAY, WEEK 4
This assignment is worth 20% of your final grade.
For this step of your final projects development, you will report the results of your research into a resolution of your papers workplace* communication problem topic in an Analytical Annotated Bibliography for three authoritative sources that you plan to use in your project to support your thesis.
Objective: Your objective is to demonstrate your ability to research and critically analyze information that can support your projects thesis.
Caution: The three sources you use for this assignment must be different from the three that you wrote about in Assignment 1, your literature review. Focus your research for this step assignment on academic and business sector research studies on possible resolutions to your workplace communication problem.
(*Remember, if you are not employed or cannot discuss your workplace, you should be using a communication problem from another organizational setting in which you are involved for your final project, such as school, church, or a community group.)
Each entry must include a reference formatted according to American Psychological Association (6th edition) style rules and an analysis as described below. You should be able to use the material that you develop here in your final project. Before you tackle this exercise, please make sure you have read the Week 4 course materials.
Required Research: You must use at leastsix authoritative sources in your final project, at least three of which must be scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles about communication research studies from the UMGC librarys databases. For this assignment, you will document your research on possible resolutions of your workplace* communication problem by writing an analytical annotated bibliography about three authoritative sources that you found in the UMGC library and plan to use in your project to support your thesis. Look for academic and business sector research studies on possible resolutions to your workplace communication problem.
To find appropriate resources, use the UMGC librarys portal to communication studies resources at http://libguides.umuc.edu/comm300 . For help finding academic journal articles, see the UMGC librarys resource, Locate and Evaluate Scholarly Articles, at http://sites.umuc.edu/library/libhow/articles.cfm .Two online sources can be among your resources, but their credibility must be verified. See the librarys handout, Is My Source Credible?, at http://sites.umuc.edu/library/libhow/credibility.cfm for help.
Although you may review the < Encyclopedia of Communication Theory >in our classroom resources to select and come to understand the communication theory or theories that you want to use in your final project, dictionaries and encyclopedias cannot be included in your Analytical Annotated Bibliography or the references for your final project. A relevant YouTube video may be included as one of the internet sources, provided it has been evaluated for credibility.
Format: The Analytical Annotated Bibliography must contain the following information:
- Use an APA-style title page.
- Repeat the title of your assignment at the top of Page 2.
- Provide the name of the communication theory you are using in your final project.
- Provide the thesis you are working with at this point in your projects development.
- Create an APA-style reference citation for the resource.
- Write a paragraph annotation of between 100-200 words (excluding APA-style reference) that answers at least the following questions:
- What is the resource about? Summarize its purpose, findings, argument, and/or conclusions.
- What is the resources greatest strength in relation to your projects focus? Assess the resources strengths, weaknesses, or biases.
- What role will the resource play in your project? Evaluate the resources relevance to your project.
- Repeat Nos. 4 and 5 above for each of your three sources.
You will find an example below of an APA-style analytical annotation from the UMGC Librarys How to Write an Annotated Bibliography at http://sites.umuc.edu/library/libhow/bibliography_tutorial.cfm . While not possible to accomplish here, the reference and the annotation should be double-spaced in documents formatted in word processing software such as MS Word.
Breeding evil. (2005, August 6). Economist, 376(8438), 9. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com
This editorial from the Economist describes the controversy surrounding video games and the effect they have on people who use them. The article points out that most critics of gaming are people over 40 and it is an issue of age not of the games themselves. While the author briefly mentions studies done around the issue of violence and gaming, he does not go into enough depth for the reader to truly know the range of studies that have actually been done in this area, other than to take his word that the research is unsatisfactory. The author of this article stresses the age factor over violence as the real reason for opposition to video games and stresses the good gaming has done in most areas of human life. This article is a good resource for those wanting to begin to explore the controversy surrounding video games; however, for anyone doing serious research, one should actually examine some of the research studies that have been done in this area rather than simply take the authors word that opposition to video games is simply due to an issue of generational divide.
Please pay attention to the last sentence of this annotation. It provides an example of a critique of an authors research.
Resources to support this activity:
The following resources should be consulted for guidance on how to analyze, write, and format the annotations and citations.
- Sample APA-style Analytical Annotated Bibliography, in the Week 4 learning resources
- How to Write an Annotated Bibliography at http://sites.umuc.edu/library/libhow/bibliography_tutorial.cfm
- APA reference citation examples athttp://sites.umuc.edu/library/libhow/apa_examples.cfm
- APA style guide to electronic reference citations at http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=http://contentdm.umuc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p16240coll2/id/0
- Locate and Evaluate Scholarly Articles at http://sites.umuc.edu/library/libhow/articles.cfm
- Secrets of My Research Success: Article Selection at http://sites.umuc.edu/library/libhow/research_tutorial_articleselection.cfm
- Is My Source Credible? at http://sites.umuc.edu/library/libhow/credibility.cfm
- How to Read a Research Study Article in a Scholarly Journal by UMGC Faculty in the Week 4 learning resources
- Sample APA-style title page at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/
Grading: For insight into your instructors expectations for this assignment, scroll down here to click on and review its grading rubric.
Due Date: Submit your analytical annotated bibliography as a Word .doc, .docx, or .rtfattachment only in its assignment folder under the Assignments link in your classroom by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time onSunday of Week 4. Do not submit the assignment in .pdf, .Gdoc, .Pages, or other format. See the Course Schedule in the syllabus for the exact final due date for this assignment.
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