Semester-long Assignment: Annotated Endnote Bibliography

Purpose:  To generate a substantial electronic annontated bibliography of sources related to a particular topic in your field. 

This is an ongoing project during the entire session--you will be adding sources during your work for all three paper assignments.  You will receive training in Endnote during the first half of the semester.

The Endnote bibliography will consist of at least 50 items, at least 10 of them annotated.  In addition to the usual fields and your annotations, your notes for each source will note the database used, the major topics (keywords) covered by the source, and whether the source is 1) popular or scholarly, and 2) primary, secondary, or tertiary.  You will eventually submit an electronic AND a paper copy of the bibliography.

Endnote downloads and information can be found at http://library.gmu.edu/endnote

Paper #1:  Explaining the importance of a current development in your field

Audience: Class members who share your major and have a research interest in this particular topic; your English 302 teacher; possibly instructors in your major.

Purpose:  To describe a current development in your field and to explain its importance to those inside AND outside the field.  There are two basic requirements of this paper:

1--You need to describe this development as clearly and concisely as possible for an audience made up of students new to your major who might be interested in exploring or studying this issue or problem.

2--You need to make a compelling, specific, and explicit case explaining the reasons this development is important to students and professionals in your field, AND why it is important to those outside of your field.  There will be some overlap in those categories, of course, but also some difference.

We need to understand and be responsible for the terminology we use given the audience for whom we write.  This means that you need to decide for yourself how much the average GMU student in your field already knows about the topic and its terminology, and how much that student doesn't know. This will help you in turn decide what kind of vocabulary, detail, and tone will be appropriate for your writing.  

You'll also need to decide what kind of research is appropriate for the paper.  Many of you will rely heavily on popular sources for this part of the paper, though scholarly sources will be helpful or necessary in certain cases. I will be requiring a bibliography for this part of paper in a citation style appropriate to your field. That bibliography should include a decent variety of source material so that your reader will understand that you are not simply repeating one or two sources without considering audience and purpose.

You will receive a provisional grade on this part of the paper. If you choose to revise this part of the paper, that provisional grade will be entirely replaced by the final grade on the overall paper.

Audience: Again, class members who share your major and have a research interest in this particular topic; your English 302 teacher; possibly instructors in your major

Purpose: To provide an overview of the written "conversastion" surrounding your topic and to analyze that conversation according to writer, audience, and purpose using a small group of specific sources as examples.  This paper focuses on the contributions of writers in a variety of sources--it is not an "I" or opinion paper.

You are responsible for showing the reader how these sources compare and contrast according to writer, audience, and purpose in the context of the "conversation" discussed throughout the semester.  Everything we discuss during the semester, in fact, should help you with this assignment.  I will be looking for you to develop the obvious AND not-so-obvious relationships and I will be looking for you to synthesize your discussion rather than just summarizing one source at a time.  There are multiple possibilities for organizing this portion of the paper--we'll discuss that in class.

This part of the paper should be at least 2000 words in length (roughly 8 full pages), not counting references page, and should thoroughly consider and analyse all of the core sources chosen.  Any number of sources can be mentioned in the paper, but your task is to focus on a small group of sources to show how these sources are a reflection of the larger and broader points you're making about the entire conversation.

In this paper, you should be able to demonstrate (and will be graded on) the ability to:

· Organize your material according to some identifiable and helpful structure
· Synthesize material from multiple sources (and not just summarize sources one by one without synthesis)
· Use specific material and evidence from your sources and research about your sources to support main points and relationships
· Paraphrase and, if appropriate, quote from sources
· Cite and document sources appropriately
· Use standard grammar, syntax, mechanics
· Use appropriate voice/tone/word choice for academic context and the specified audience