Unit 3: Research Assignment Formal Draft. Annotated Bibliography

NOTE: This assignment is REQUIRED in order to pass the final assignment. The quality of your draft WILL be considered as part of your final grade on the assignment.
Collins
Composing and Peer Review Guidelines: Research Project
Complete Annotated Bibliography & Draft: Due May 10, 11:59pm
Peer Edits Due: May 13th
NOTE: Remember that the quality of your draft counts toward your final Research Project grade
NOTE: Your peers are not responsible for editing an incomplete draft.
NOTE: Late drafts will not be accepted.
NOTE: Please check your formatting! Citation software is not perfect. Consider making an appointment with the LibrarianLinks to an external site.: Librarian Desk: 949-451-5266
Overview:
800-word PROPOSAL of a research project (that could become a 15-20 page researched argument) that describes a current social, political, cultural, and/or ecological problem related to social justice, analyzes the context that contributed to its development, and offers an argument for how to address it. Use (properly cited MLA 8th edition) researched evidence to explain (in concrete terms) what is the problem, who or what is affected by it and how; what is the context in which the problem developed? (e.g., existing policy or lack of policy, law or lack of law enforcement, public opinion, etc.), and what are one or more possible solutions. The solutions, which should come last, should be connected to the context analysis and should be in the form of an argument. NOTE: The entire purpose of this draft is to SHOW your research. Introduce it, quote from it, develop it.
NOTE: This assignment is a PROPOSAL--a plan for a research essay, not the essay itself. For this course, the purpose is to learn how to do research and how to plan for a lengthy 25-page project. The priority is the annotated bibliography and the draft is just practice on how to integrate research. You should use it as an opportunity to think through effective planning, outlining, and development. To that end, utilize the bolding and bracketing method of note-taking that you learned at the beginning of this course. The quality of the notes will be evaluated as part of the grade. Can show where you need, but do not yet have, evidence.
15-20 source bibliography that follows MLA 8th edition citation conventions. Note: Be sure to provide at least 10 annotated summaries.
Please include page numbers and double-space everything.
Use this chapter "Incorporating Sources" to help you write your draft.
Look at this student sample on source analysis to help you write your draft.
Peer Reviewing:
Note: DO NOT correct your peer's grammar. The focal point of the assignment is the demonstration of research. If you are compelled, you can simply write "grammar" next to a grammatically problematic sentence. Only correct grammar if you can provide an explanation for the grammatical rule (e.g., "This is a run-on sentence; a run-on sentence is when you connect two independent clauses without proper punctuation--as in no punctuation or a comma splice. Here is a link to that rule).
Reviewing is yet another genre of writing. It involves stylistic conventions, shared criteria for evaluation, and a common language. For this assignment, you will be responsible for reviewing TWO drafts. Each draft review will include marginal comments (please make your comments directly on Canvas; comments tool on upper left), and a 1-2 page write-up (which you can paste directly on the right-hand side comments section of Canvas).

I will be grading these peer edits based on the marginal notations and type-written summary you provide and, in peer review, on your ability to help your peer authors to respond constructively to your written comments. Your grade will be based on both the clarity and specificity of direction you provide for the author’s revision, as well as your insight into the project's strengths and flaws. Do not use generalizing and unhelpful language such as “it flows well” or “I like your ideas” or “you do a good job with the evidence.” Instead, use constructive language that offers the author specific suggestions for reorganizing and rebuilding. Keep in mind that it is crucial that you show evidence for your claims; your peers can be misled by your suggestions if you do not demonstrate that you know what you are talking about, so always proceed with caution. Provide the sort of feedback that you would hope to receive.
Marginal notations and Write-up: The marginal notations and the summary should work together. Do not repeat in the summary what you did in the margins. Rather, use the summary to help the writer to bring those notations into focus. What do all these comments add up to? You will have to evaluate your own comments, noticing trends, key logical points, absence of evidence, and the like, to determine what the author should focus on first in the revision process.
In order to produce an effective write-up, you have to spend time with the marginal work.

Once you have read through the project carefully and made your marginal notations, please offer a type-written summary (about 350 words) that explains one-two things that work best in the project (please point to page numbers and quote from the essay). Are these two things major (argument, organization, evidence) or minor aspects of the essay (a paragraph here, an observation there?). Explain. What two or three things does the project need to focus on most for revision? (again, point out if these are major or minor issues). Many of you will be tempted to say they are minor issues in order to be nice. If you sense that the issues are major, it is not nice to lie. It is nice to deliver bad news in good form (e.g., “There are a few promising insights on pages 2 and 5, but the draft struggles to establish any clear purpose or direction. I fear you will have to revise extensively, if not rewrite. Here; have cookie.”)
Remember, your responses will be graded on the specificity of your comments. Have you, in other words, given clear and effective guidance on how to improve this essay? AS A RULE OF THUMB, USE EVIDENCE FROM THE PROJECT—QUOTE IT!—TO MAKE YOUR POINT CLEAR.
Checklist:
Annotated Bibliography
1. First determine if each source is cited correctly in MLA formatting. (If you aren't sure, write "check citation.")
2. Next, use the annotated bibliography checklist to evaluate each summary and the bibliography as a whole.

Proposal
1. Does the Proposal describe a specific, contemporary civil rights-related problem? Does it anchor itself to a specific point in time--a policy or event--that helps us to see the problem's inception in material terms? One place where the problem lives, for example, or when and how the problem began? Does the account draw on concrete details such as specific dates, names of places, people, communities, organizations and other material realities that help us to see the problem in its contemporary context? Does it offer some aspect of the context that contributed to the problem's development, and an argument about how to address it?
2. Does the author use effective note-taking strategies to indicate where the essay requires further development or researched evidence?
3. Is it obvious that the author has done their research by integrating and citing source material from the bibliography and by showing where research can be effectively used in the construction of an essay draft?
4. Does the proposal make effective use of longer sources by offering a more developed account of them than sources that are simply used as evidence to support a claim?
5. Are the paragraphs organized as you have been taught to understand effective organization in this course?