Rationale/Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to help you start planning your researched argument paper by identifying possible sources and evaluating their usefulness. The paper also provides practice in proper MLA citation and research skills.
Prompt: Identify five reliable sources on your topic. Government, organization, news, and educational websites are usually reliable sources (.gov, .org, and .edu). Be careful of .com websites since they are often for-profit which makes them biased. You cannot use Wikipedia as a source, but you can go there to begin your search and use the reference list at the end of the entry to get more ideas. Provide a proper MLA citation for each source (use http://www.bibme.org/), and then briefly summarize its content and pertinence to your position in a brief paragraph of 3-5 sentences. This paragraph is called an annotation. See the example Annotated Bibliography for an idea of how yours should look.
Audience: The audience for these annotations is you, your peer group, and me as your English 140 instructor.
Evaluation Criteria: This paper will be evaluated on proper MLA citation; quality, relevance, and variety of sources; and clarity of annotations. Refer to the checklist for a more specific breakdown of these criteria.
Format/Requirements: The paper should be 1 to 2 pages, in proper MLA (Modern Language Association) format, which includes:
- typed, size 12 Times New Roman font, with the entire paper (even the heading) double-spaced
- one inch margins (top, bottom, left, right)
- proper heading (top left corner, your name, my last name, course, date)
- informative title referencing your topic/issue
- proper MLA citation for each article