Self-paced exercise for students to follow in teams - to ask questions about FINDING and ANALYZING their sources. Focused on UMBC, but adaptable for your local University/College. Helps students create an annotated bibliography. ENGL 100

1. WEEK 5 WORKSHOP WEEK
What to do
when you’re not in conference
with a Writing Fellow or Ms. Walters

2. PROPOSAL POSTED? TIME PLANNED?
 Make sure you have …
 posted your Research Proposal in
BlackBoard.
 recorded all deadlines in your own planner
 blocked out time for finding research, reading
your research, exploratory writing, revising
your writing, researching more, rewriting, and
editing.
 It can be helpful to observe your patterns – do you
prefer to write in large blocks of time? Can you
read in short bits of time between classes? What
times of day are most useful for you to work?

3. LIBRARY ADVENTURE
Due in Week 6
 Videos: At the AOK Library Page, under the
Resources/Tutorials button and under the
BlackBoard  Library Awesomeness
section, you can find videos to watch &
rewatch.

4. LIBRARY ADVENTURE (1-3)
 Goals of Paper – what is your research
question? What is the goal of your paper?
 What are the goals of your TEAMMATE’S
papers?
 Suggest keywords for each other.
 Suggest subject guides to use.
 Remember, it can often be helpful to use several
for slightly different approaches.

5. LIBRARY ADVENTURE (4)
 Note the databases that seem most useful
for your topic, as listed in the subject guides.
 (If your chosen database is not published by
EBSCO (the one we watched in class) , watching the
tutorials for that particular publisher can be
helpful and discovering advanced features of
your databases.)

6. LIBRARY ADVENTURE (5-6, 12)
 If you or any of your teammates have:
 physically explored the library (browsing the
area of the stacks with resources relevant to your
topic),
 or logged in from off campus using research port,
 used any “ask-a-librarian” features,
 Please discuss and share those experiences.

7. LIBRARY ADVENTURE (7)
 Compare and contrast the type of information
you find when you look for articles…
 from a general database (such as Academic Search
Premiere, allowing general magazines/newspapers
in the search.)
 the same database, but limited to scholarly journal
articles
 databases for specifically focused on your area
(such as PsyInfo, ERIC, MedLine, MLA, CWI, etc. –
find them through your subject guide!)
 from the “front page” of the library site, using the
“AOK One search” under the articles tab.

8. LIBRARY ADVENTURE (8-9)
 When using your specialized database, what
was the most useful change in your search
terms? (using “AND” “OR” or “NOT”? Using
a phrase in quote marks? )
 When using your specialized database, what
was the most useful “checkbox/dropdown
limiter” for your search? (Year? a
subcategory? age? Gender? type of study?
Feel free to specify something else.)

9. LIBRARY ADVENTURE (10)
 ) Find 2-3 scholarly articles (from journals or
specialized encyclopedias) that sound
exactly like what you’re looking for. Did they
live up to expectations? (and what were
those expectations?) If not, might they still be
useful for the paper as a point of departure,
as something to disagree with? (Be sure to
get full Bibliographic information for them.)

10. LIBRARY ADVENTURE (10 – FOR TEAMMATES)
 Find 1 scholarly articles (from academic
journals) that sound exactly like what you
think each teammate is looking for.
 Take turns for each topic, and everyone
share what they found.
 If the target-teammate likes what you’re finding,
share your search strategy.
 If your finding was off the mark, discuss why, so
everyone can get a clearer understanding of
each topic.

11. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Note that it’s due end of day, Friday, October
2
 6 sources are required for the AnnoBib (but
only 4 in the final paper)
 This is because you’re allowed to “reject” some
sources after your careful analysis
 You may also add sources later without going
through the AnnoBib process
 Read the assignment sheet carefully!

12. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRPAHY - HINTS
 Summary:
 If you were trying to find this source in a stack of
20, how would you describe it?
 Think of what makes this source DIFFERENT
from the others.
 Think of the journalist questions: Who*, What,
When, Where, Why, How.

13. MORE ON “WHO”
 Note WHO is being studied. (Often studies are
done at universities on male athletes because they
are easily “standardized”- in other sections you may
evaluate how applicable the study is to other
populations)
 Also note WHO is doing the studies – this is what
leads to the context analysis section.

14. ANNOBIB CONTEXT
 When was this written/published? How does
that affect this article? (technology available?
Societal views? Should you be using more
recent material?
 Who is the author? What affiliations do they
have?
 Where was this published? What is the focus
of this journal or source?
 What kind of study is this?

15. ANNOBIB ASSESS
 Is this source useful for your purposes?
 Think of the “trigger” and “goal” – why does it
seem the author wrote this, and what is his
or her goal for those reading it?
 Do the conclusions match YOUR
interpretation of the data? (You don’t need to
be an expert, but does it feel “flaky” to you?)

16. ANNOBIB REFLECT
 What are your plans for the source?
 How has it changed how you think about the
topic?
 What does this source now make it clear you
need to know next?

17. ANNOBIB FINAL PARAGRAPH
 After you’ve found and annotated your
sources, don’t forget to review them in
context of each other.
 Which was most helpful? Why?
 What did you learn that was surprising?
 What is your current working-thesis statement?