Books and Scholarly Articles

Due October 28 - don't wait

You have two main tasks here. You need to find three books and three scholarly articles on your research topic, and for each source you need to construct an annotated reference.

Task One: (Research Assignment #2)
Use the CUNY+ system to locate at least 3 books on your research topic. You’ll immediately see that York College does not carry most of the books you’ll need. You are required to locate at least two of these books at another CUNY library. You will likely want to use CUNY’s book delivery system to send the books your way. Make sure you fill out the forms before you leave class. If you procrastinate on this assignment, you’ll need to physically go to the relevant libraries to get the books you need. (Don’t procrastinate, please.)

- Read the books very selectively. At first, you’re browsing the book. In most cases, you’ll only want to work with a chapter or two, or possibly even less, of a book. Edited books, in particular, might have more chapters that you’ll want to use.
- For each book, create an annotated reference. You’ll use APA citation style for the reference. Your annotation should have three parts: a 3-5 sentence description/summary of the book; a 3-5 sentence explanation for why you think the book can work for your project; and at least 3 quotations from the book, followed by your explanation of the passage and comments on ways the passage might be useful. That means a minimum of 15 sentences for each source! (Some books won’t work for you. If a book won’t work, you can include that in the explanation.)

Task Two: (Research Assignment #3)
Use the E-Journals and Reference Databases link at http://libraries.cuny.edu to locate at least 3 scholarly journal articles that look like they’ll help you with your topic. I suggest you consider using EBSCO for starters since it includes many full text articles, and access to a good number of databases. Since York College won’t carry many scholarly journals, if you need to get a print copy not available online you’ll need to complete paperwork. (I strongly suggest that you try this at least once, though it isn’t required.)

- Read your three articles fairly carefully. You’re looking for a sense of the “issues” or themes around your topic. This will help you develop your research question and focus your project. You’re also looking for key concepts that are used to examine your topic.
- For each article, create an annotated reference. You’ll use APA citation style for the reference. Your annotation should have three parts: a 3-5 sentence description/summary of the article; a 3-5 sentence explanation for why you think the it can work for your project; and at least 3 quotations from the article, followed by your explanation of the passage and comments on ways the passage might be useful. That means a minimum of 15 sentences for each source! Here is a great place to identify key themes and concepts in the articles. It is also a good place to start exploring connections to either Omi/Winant or Nagel.

Your annotated references should all appear as a document you’ll call your Annotated Bibliography. You need to add the three websites you found in your Evaluating Web Sources assignment to this annotated bibliography. So, by October 26, you’ll already have at least 9 sources related in some way to your research project!