The "Annotated Webliography" Assignment for Iphone, Android and Blackberry Apps for English Language
Introduction
The Annotated Webliography is designed to help you acquire the skills you will need to conduct research, particularly on the World Wide Web, and use that research in composing documented research essays (research papers) in this and other classes. The Annotated Webliography is the third step in a five-step research and writing process defined roughly as follows:
- Questioning / Defining Search Strategy
- Search and Encounter (reading available source materials)
- Annotated Webliography
- Constructing the Documented Essay
- Revising and Editing
Your main job for this third step (annotated webliography) is to assimilate the information you read in your selected source documents in preparation for composing your Documented Research Essay.
Why is the Annotated Webliography Necessary?
Some students might wonder why this step is necessary. If you have written a conventional research paper in the past, your process might have been to (1) pick a topic, (2) do the research and take notes, (3) write the paper incorporating the notes, (4) revise and submit. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with this process, and many students have used it successfully. However, the architects of this course have learned from our several years working with writing students that something often goes wrong between the second step (research) and third step (writing). Problems may include the following:
· Students often have a difficult time deciding what to do with authoritative source materials once they have found them.
· Materials are not used (or documented) appropriately in the final essay.
· There is an imbalance between the language of the source material and the language (commentary) provided by the student.
· The essay reads like a "patchwork" of source materials with no real contribution from the student author.
· Problems with any of the above might lead to the impression that the student has misused or misappropriated (or sometimes, plagiarized) the source materials.
The Annotated Webliography assignment is designed, therefore, to help eliminate these problems and to help the student navigate the research process more easily and, we hope, more enjoyably. Basically, the assignment formalizes the middle step of the research process to help the student better understand and assimilate the material encountered during the "search and encounter" phase mentioned above. The "webliography" (akin to the "bibliography") allows the student to list all sources relevant to the topic and which will be used later in the documented essay. This "webliography" is then "annotated" (amended with notes, reactions, commentary) so that students can think and write critically about the source material in order to better prepare them for writing the documented essay.
In brief, the Annotated Webliography should help you become more comfortable with the research process in general. Even though it appears to add a step to the writing process, it should actually save you time in the long run, since the thinking and writing you do for this assignment can be used directly in the documented essay.
How to Build an Annotated Webliography
Your goal in constructing the Webliography is first to evaluate the source material and second to appropriate (take as your own) relevant information to be used later in your Documented Research Essay. Evaluation involves a careful assessment of both the credibility and appropriateness of a particular source document (for example, an article in a specialized magazine, a chapter in a book, a website, an article from an on-line newspaper, etc.). Appropriation involves both taking (actually cutting and pasting) appropriate passages from the source document and then commenting on (using your own words) the appropriateness of the passage for your research topic. The comments you write now may later become part of your essay.
So, for each Web Reading that you read for this assignment, you will do the following:
A. Source Information: the name of the application and the type of phone
B. The URL
C. Evaluation Paragraph: Write one summative paragraph [30 words] in which you describe the Application and its benefits and whether it is for free or not( do not plagiarize)
Sample webliography:
The ATW (Association of Teachers' Websites) is an association of web sites created by the real experts - teachers. (K-13) http://www.byteachers.org.uk
Awesome Library organizes the Web with 30,000 carefully reviewed resources, including the top 5 percent in education. http://www.awesomelibrary.org
EdHelper dot Com has lessons, lesson plans and study help for almost every discipline. (K-12) http://www.edhelper.com
Lesson Plan Central is an educator's guide to Free Lesson Plans, Webquests, Worksheets, Student Links and Clipart. (All levels) http://lessonplancentral.com
Lesson Plans K-12 covers all disciplines, from the Teachers Scholastic website. http://teacher.scholastic.com/lessonplans/index.asp
Lesson Plans Page has 2,500 free lesson plans for all subjects. (K-12) http://www.lessonplanspage.com
Lesson Plan Search provides free, good lesson plans in all subjects. (K-14) http://www.lessonplansearch.com