An annotated bibliography is intended to both expose the student to research in a particular field and give them the skills by which to evaluate that research against the field in general. The University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Writing Center suggests annotations should accomplish some or all of the following:
For this annotated bibliography, you will be choosing a total of eight (8) articles from academic journals or papers from conference proceedings that are related to human-computer interaction, interface design, or a closely related field. These articles should be published within the last five years (up to ten years if the work has shown itself to be particularly important in the field; this is to limit the size of the net you cast, not to suggest there are no worthwhile articles outside that time frame). In addition, try to find articles that you find interesting. Annotations should be between 150 and 200 words. Remember, annotations are not summaries or abstracts though they contain aspects of both, so keep it brief while trying to hit all the requirements.
Prior to beginning on this, you should submit your topic to the instructor to get feedback on what, if any, tweaks need to be made.
Submit a single PDF that includes a title page, an introductory paragraph that informs the reader about the topic chosen and why the articles as a collection are relevant to that topic, the annotations, and a half-page conclusion that describes the overarching theme discovered in the sources and, potentially, what gaps in the body of research you’ve identified.
Again, to be clear, this project option requires eight (8) annotations total that consist each of the properly formatted citation of the resource and your annotation. Be sure to review the supplemental resources below and the example annotation.
(Note that this annotation is generally what you’re aiming for and is even just slightly longer than you’re expected to write. Though this contains direct quotations, you’re highly encouraged to not directly quote the article/paper unless the specific word or phrase is of particular importance.)
Jarmon, L., Traphagan, T., Mayrath, M., & Trivedi, A. (2009). Virtual world teaching, experiential learning, and assessment: An interdisciplinary communication course in Second Life. Computers & Education, 53(1), 169–182. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2009.01.010
The current study uses Second Life (SL) to examine the learning impact of virtual worlds. To accomplish this, the authors chose a graduate Interdisciplinary Communication course and selected five students to participate. The authors provide a fairly extensive review of relevant literature and experiential learning, especially, to justify the need for the study. Their findings suggest there are many and varied benefits to using virtual worlds as learning tools, such as “creativity… social interaction… enhancing student motivation and engagement” (p. 170). The study itself was mixed-methods and included a great deal of focus groups and speeches, with little in the way of quantitative data. Unsurprisingly, the authors find that SL’s main and best form of learning is experimental. Transferring these findings to general education classes, however, would be problematic: again, the survey sample was only five students, and these students were heavily vetted and trained in using Second Life prior to the course. Regardless of this priming, the authors do encourage the use of virtual worlds as a “playground for student learning” (p. 180).
To be considered a complete submission, your annotated bibliography needs to meet the following requirements:
There is no grading declaration for the final project, as the introduction and summary somewhat serve this purpose.
Use the following rubric:
| Category | Exceeds (20 pts) | Approaching (12 pts) | Lacking (4 pts) | Does not meet (0 pts) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Content | Your sources are interesting and they are all clearly related to your topic. | Your sources cover your topic, but they are less interesting and the relationship to your project is less clear. | Few, if any, of your sources are related to your topic. You may seem to have no real interest in your project. | You have not read enough to determine if your sources are related or not. |
| Currency | Your sources are all published within the timeframe assigned. | About half of your sources are published within the correct timeframe for your topic. | Few of your sources are published within the correct timeframe. | You pay no attention at all to the timeframe required. |
| Level | You select a variety of research sources and they are all sourced from peer-reviewed academic journals/conference proceedings. | The sources you select are less varied, but most are from peer-reviewed publications or proceedings. | You select mostly one source type (i.e., all articles from a single journal) and most are not written at the appropriate level for this project’s purpose. | You do your research at the last minute and it is obvious that you do not examine your sources to determine at what level they are written. |
| Authority | You can identify the author(s) of your sources and their credentials are relevant. | You can identify the author(s) for most of your sources and their credentials are relevant. | You don’t really know much about most of the author(s) of your resources. | You make no attempt at identifying your authors or their credentials. |
| Summary | You clearly summarize the main idea of each of your sources and can make an explicit connection to your topic. | You clearly summarize the main idea of each of your sources, but their connection to your argument is less apparent. | You try to summarize your sources, but have trouble focusing on the main idea. You make no attempt to connect your sources to your chosen topic. | You make no attempt to summarize your sources clearly. There is no connection between your sources and your topic. |
| Conventions | You correctly cite at least eight sources using APA 6th or 7th edition. | You cite at least seven sources and make an effort to adhere to APA style but have some difficulty. | You cite six or fewer sources using your own citation style and manage to be fairly consistent. | You cite five or fewer sources and did not bother to use a consistent citation style. |