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Analyzing Secondary Sources
Assignment by Benesemon Simmons, Bedford New Scholar 2020
During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom.
Benesemon: The purpose of my Assignment that Works is to help my students analyze secondary sources for research. The first part of the assignment asks students to complete an annotated bibliography, and the second part asks students to write an essay using two of the annotations and analyzing their rhetorical features, their relationship to each other, and their relevance to the research inquiry. This assignment helps students of composition become familiar with the annotated bibliography as a genre, locate sources for their research, and consider connections between sources specific to a research topic.
Primary Purpose: An annotated bibliography is an organizing tool that is helpful when working on a research project. An effective annotated bibliography is used to compile research sources in one location and provide the researcher with quick access to the information contained in each source. This assignment will help you to demonstrate expertise within this genre, while gathering particularly great sources on a research topic.
Part 1: Annotated Bibliography
Content/Subject: Your annotated bibliography will consist of the sources that you have deemed relevant to your topic and/or question(s) of inquiry. While you may encounter sources that are not relevant or do not fit the scope of your project while researching, for the purposes of this assignment, you will only include the ones that you find useful and relevant.
- Cite the source in proper MLA format. The citations should be organized in alphabetical order by author just as in an MLA References page.
- Follow with a brief annotation that summarizes the source (approx. 5-7 sentences). You may quote from the source, but do not copy and paste the abstract. Ideally, all of the annotation should be in your own words.
- In 1 or 2 sentences, explain the source’s relevance and importance to your issue.
Constraints: The annotated bibliography is a fairly rigid genre. Your citations must adhere to format. This will be one of the central components of the grade for this assignment. Failure to follow MLA format exactly will affect your grade.
The annotations for each source should follow an academic style. This means that you must construct, with elevated and sophisticated language, correct grammatical sentences that effectively summarize what each source has to say. Additionally, you should explain how each source is relevant to the issue that you have selected and what it adds to your knowledge about your issue. Specific guidelines to follow when completing this assignment are:
- 5 secondary sources (using scholarly journals; one website is allowed).
- Sources focused around a narrowed issue or question of inquiry.
- Adherence to MLA format for all citations.
- Sources in alphabetical order according to author.
- Thoughtful and complete annotations.
- Correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling.
Part 2: Rhetorical Analysis Essay
In a text of 4 pages you will analyze two secondary sources YOU locate specific to your research question and account for how your perspective on your research topic has changed as a result of your encounters with other ideas and perspectives and positions on said topic.
Essay Structure
- Introduce initial research question and establish the relevance and exigence of the topic. Then, choose two sources from your annotated bibliography to feature in your essay:
- Analyze first source in terms of its rhetorical features and its relationship to the research question. Create transition…
- Analyze second source in terms of its rhetorical features and its relationship to the research question. Create transition…
- Develop ideas about how each source pushes your thinking in different ways: consider new ideas for research.
- Conclude by rephrasing the original question, summarizing main points, and reflecting on the relevance of your research.
