Overview
Proposal & Annotated Bibliography (10% of overall grade): You will write a proposal as well as a
complete, annotated and formatted bibliography in Chicago style. By the time you write the proposal, you
will have done a lot of research and established that you have a viable project.
Due: April 7, before class, via Brightspace (submit the proposal and bibliography as one document, either
MS Word or PDF).
Required Elements:
1)Process Work (Reading and Analysis): Three low-stakes assignments prompting you to identify
valuable sources, read and annotate those sources, and compile material from those sources to include in
the essay. Process work assignments help you build up to your proposal and annotated bibliography (see
below).
2)Proposal (1-2 pages): An academic proposal reflects extensive research and is more of a research
summary, justification, and work plan. It should include discussions of the following:
1) your topic and context 2) your research question 3) an overview of your primary and secondary
sources, and how they will be used 4) preliminary findings 5) significance.
3)Annotated Bibliography (10 sources total—6 secondary, 4 primary): Good research requires that
you find and read more sources than are required for your project. Your annotated bibliography should
reflect engagement with double or triple the minimum required sources for the final draft.
Divide your bibliography into two sections, Primary Sources and Secondary Sources. Within each
section, organize your sources alphabetically by the author's last name. Each entry should be
accompanied by a paragraph that describes the following (in your own words):
1. What kind of source is this? If it is an article, tell your reader what journal it was published in
and what kinds of scholarship that journal typically publishes. If it is a selection from a book,
tell your reader what kind of book (a monograph? An edited collection?) and what kind of
excerpt you are working with (a chapter? an essay?).
2. What is the topic of this source and what is the author's central claim regarding that topic?
3. What is your interest in the source from the point of view of your paper topic? What is the
value and relevance of this source for your paper? In other words, how are you going to use
these sources in the paper?
Required Sources for FINAL paper (6 sources total): As a reminder, these are the Final Research
Paper source requirements, which you will narrow down from the annotated bibliography discussed
above.
- Minimum of THREE primary sources (or more). One may be in the Kent book, but at least two
others should be from outside the course.
- Minimum of THREE secondary sources (or more), consisting of scholarly books/chapters or
articles (from outside the course).