Home Teaching Resources Composition Archive CO150 2003-2004 Syllabus Portfolio 2: Annotated Bibliography

Portfolio 2: Annotated Bibliography

Overview: To complete this assignment, you will read at least 15 sources on the issue you plan to analyze. Then, you will choose at least 10 of these sources to annotate, describing them and justifying their inclusion.

Purposes for this Bibliography: To become informed on your issue; to begin considering the various positions and approaches/perspectives writers take in writing about this issue; to demonstrate your ability to evaluate sources for a particular writing situation.

Audience: Write your bibliography for yourself, your peers, and your instructor.

Portfolio Content: Please submit your annotated bibliography in a folder clearly labeled with your name. Your portfolio should include:

• Your Topic Proposal with my reactions to it
• Your Personal Position Analysis with my reactions to it
• All additional Position Analyses you’ve completed
• Work you’ve completed on a Composite Grid
• Your annotated bibliography

Bibliography Requirements: There is no required length for the bibliography, but it will most likely range from 500 to 750 words. In it, you should:

• List your sources alphabetically and apply MLA Works Cited conventions.
• Follow each bibliographic entry with three to five sentences summarizing the writer’s purpose and the main points from their argument. Additionally, provide a justification for your inclusion of the source, using criteria developed in class
• Your goal is a representative and balanced sample of sources, suggesting a variety of perspectives or approaches on the issue as well as a variety of publication types—news sources, web sites, academic journal articles, trade journals, etc.
• Here’s a sample annotated bibliography entry:

Lemann, Nicholas, “The SAT Meritocracy,” Washington Monthly 29.9 (September

1997), 32-36.

Lemann, a regular columnist for the Atlantic Monthly, is author of several notable criticisms of American education. He is particularly concerned about entrenched class-ism in U.S. schooling. Lemann’s article presents a stinging condemnation of the SAT’s tendency to reward the “mandarin elite.” This article was written before Atkinson’s proposal and may be particularly valuable as a representative voice for those who criticize the SAT because of its presumed prejudice against the lower classes. This source will provide a healthy additional voice to my sources that analyze the SAT from a “class prejudice” approach or shared perspective.