Research_Paper

Annotated Bibliography Version 2 Introduction An annotated bibliography is an excellent reference document that provides summaries and comments of all of the sources consulted during a research enterprise. A well written annotated bibliography can be a pleasure to read as well as a great future research tool. It always provides useful assistance since it contains information about the sources you have read and analyzed. Often, we forget where we found certain ideas or do not correctly remember which source as the most valuable for what particular information. Since an annotated bibliography contains more information than just the details of the citation, an annotated bibliography can be the place where you go to solve this problem. An annotated bibliography differs from a list of works cited because it contains information summarizing and commenting on each source. The rest of this document will explain the reasons for creating an annotated bibliography and some tips about how to do it. Purpose Any Bibliography or List of Works Cited can provide details of the documents, interviews, and websites consulted in the process of conducting research. An annotated bibliography goes beyond that point by providing a summary and an assessment of each source. The comments provide a reference for what documents and sources were valuable in the current research and how they might be useful in the future. There are several reasons for preparing an annotated bibliography. The most important one is the practice it provides you in examining the point of view of a document, website, report, interview, article, or book. Reading it carefully for the perspective, approach to a topic and scope helps you focus on what is being said and how it is being characterized. It also causes you to think more critically about what you are reading while you read it and forces you to make some evaluation of the merits of the source as you read it. The second reason for developing an annotated bibliography derives from the encouragement it provides you to consider the article or book that you are reading as a whole. Whether reading an article, a review, or a book, your recognition that you will need to summarize and comment on it as an entity helps you keep that perspective on what you are reading. While you inevitably take notes on parts of an article, many students do not step back from what they are reading and consider the point of view, purpose, or of the document. Compiling comments for an annotated bibliography requires that you consider the perspective of the work and make a judgment about the relative value of what you are examining. It also you to keep focusing on the goal of your research and examining the adequacy of the range of quality sources you have consulted. A third reason involves your credibility as a researcher. Showing that you are able to distinguish between valuable sources and ones that have significant limitations increases your reader’s trust in your insights. Your ability to describe the sources that you use and their merits shows the reader that you are bringing critical thinking to your work and that you are able to keep a healthy skepticism about what you are reading and using in your research. A fourth reason for an annotated bibliography is its future value, both to you and others. It can be a worthwhile gift to other people – students or other professionals – learning the area you have been investigating since it provides a road map to a new subject. For you, it can be a reminder about what sources are worth revisiting and reusing in the future. As you continue to conduct research in similar or related areas, having an annotated bibliography helps you remember which articles you read previously were worth reading again and which ones might have useful bibliographies that can propel your new research forward more easily and productively. For these reasons, take every opportunity to create annotated bibliographies; the person who will benefit the most is you. Technical Details Good annotations are well written and thoughtful. They include three types of information – the citation, a summary, and an assessment. They show that someone has thought about what they read and considered its value from a variety of perspectives. Each annotation should be completed, accurately and thoroughly, in the appropriate bibliographical style – at the Tisch Center, the MLA format is the standard – followed by phrases or complete sentences. Each entry should be listed alphabetically and accurately so that you – or some reader of your bibliography – can locate the source easily and effectively. Errors in the citation will make it difficult for you to return to the source or require you to search for it again using the search engines you found productive in your work. The commentary in an annotated bibliography should be in the third person, objective point of view. Although you have made the comments, your professional judgment is involved and not just your emotional reaction to what you have read. In addition, you never know who will read this annotated bibliography; writing it in the third person gives you an easier time in sharing it; you will not need to go back and edit out certain comments or emotional reactions. It also provides credibility to what you are saying. For clarity, separate the comments about each source from the listing of the source itself. For example, the following citation does not clearly indicate where the annotation starts and the listing ends. It also does not contain any assessment of the merits of the article: Garlick, Rick. "Putting the Pieces Together: Using Research to Create Fully Aligned Brands." Maritz Research (2009): 1-5. Print. This whitepaper not only speaks about strengthening a company’s brand but also how it affects the type of guest a company wants to attract. This article discusses employee teamwork and culture values, which were applicable to the seven principles of quality service. This data helped strengthen the reasons to select the seven principles of quality service due to the fact that they both encompass several of the same values. A clearer layout might be: Garlick, Rick. "Putting the Pieces Together: Using Research to Create Fully Aligned Brands." Maritz Research (2009): 1-5. Print. This whitepaper not only speaks about strengthening a company’s brand but also how it affects the type of guest a company wants to attract. This article discusses employee teamwork and culture values, which were applicable to the seven principles of quality service. These data helped strengthen the reasons to select the seven principles of quality service due to the fact that they both encompass several of the same values. This next example provides thorough and complete technical details of the source: Palumbo, Frederick A., and Ira Teich. "Segmenting the U.S. Hispanic Market Based on Level of Acculturation." Journal of Promotion Management 12.1 (Dec. 2005): 151-173. Business Source Premier. EBSCO. New York University Bobst Library, New York, NY. 8 Nov. 2008 . Palumbo and Teich’s research suggests that advertising to the Hispanic market in the United States requires a more complex approach due to the various national and cultural differences within the community. The scholars suggest that the level of acculturation to U.S. culture is a key factor in determining how to best reach the Hispanic market. While the researchers argue that the Hispanic market can be fragmented, they also note that the Hispanic market as a whole does share common traits that can be leveraged in national campaigns. The article provides much needed insight into the consumer preferences and advertising influences of one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population. Both these examples indicate that there are various styles appropriate for an annotated bibliography, and you should feel comfortable writing them in the manner you want so long as the citations are accurate, the summary is clear, and the assessment makes sense. In addition, it is important to make some visual distinction between the citation and the annotation. Some individuals write them as whole paragraphs and some write in short phrases. The examples below illustrate a wide range of possible styles and format. Samples Below are a number of samples provided by students (who have granted me permission to share them) with comments – in italics – about the annotations. This set of samples illustrates various ways to write an annotated bibliography while recognizing the two essential parts – a summary and an evaluation. Baldacchino, Godfrey. "Total Quality Management in a Luxury Hotel: A Critique of Practice." International Journal of Hospitality Management, 14.1 (1995): 67-78. This article provides a definition and description of what TQM is and how it is applicable to the service industry. The research continues by incorporating several case studies on a variety of other luxury hotels including the Four Seasons. This article was chosen because it provided more insight on TQM as well as giving me the idea of using the Four Seasons as the case study for this particular paper. Notice the first two sentences review the focus and scope of the article and the last one points out why it was used. The annotation does not evaluate the merits of the article even though it indicates why the writer wanted to use it. Cruce, Ty M., and John V. Moore. “First-Year Students’ Plans to Volunteer: An Examination of the Predictors of Community Service Participation.” Journal of College Student Development 48.6 (2007): 655-673. The researchers estimated the differences in first-year students’ decisions to volunteer while in college by their demographic characteristics, as well as by the characteristics of the institution they attended. The findings demonstrated that the traditional student is least likely to volunteer (young, white, male). In addition, students who attended large institutions in urban areas were least likely to volunteer. Finally, learning-community membership was a key predictor of volunteerism during the first year of college. The study can be useful for the development of target programming to encourage the U.S. college students to participate in volunteer activities. The explanation of the article is clear and focused. The documents also show in what ways the article can be useful. Separating the summary from the commentary on the article would improve it. Correia, Abel and Esteves, Sandra. “An exploratory study of spectators’ motivation in football”. International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing. 2007. Vol. 2, Nos 5/6, 572-590. The authors set themselves the objective to see the attributes of the sport experience that motivate spectators to attend a certain football game and explore if there are differences in the factors’ influence between genders and age groups. The authors base their work on a huge number of studies, mainly because they faced a certain amount of uncertainty concerning what they were going to find in this specific setting, which is the Final of the Cup of Portugal played at the National Stadium, a specific, one-off event. They surveyed 156 spectators in the vicinities of the stadium 7 hours before the match kickoff. Even though the authors had some previous constructs about factors to be found, such as Perceived Options (event selection regarding other events, value, etc), Sense of Self (team identification), Personal Intentions (task incentives, ego incentives, social incentives and extrinsic incentives); once the study was conducted they had to group the results in 5 different factors affecting the stadium attendance experience: Material Reasons (economics, ticket value, etc), Team Affiliation (loyalty), Extras & Facilities (parking, gifts, etc), Star Player and Form of Entertainment (enjoy sports). They found, au contraire to other studies, that Material Reasons are the most important ones to fans, followed by Team Affiliation and Extras & Facilities. They also found that there are differences between women and men spectators: women are higher in Material Reasons and in Star Players than men. In terms of age group, younger spectators are more influenced by Material Reasons, Extras & Facilities and Star Players; young adults are not influenced by Star Players; and elders are influenced by star players. Overall, a very good study that ascertains its limitation: that it was for a one-off event and cannot have the same replication for the regularity of games in Portugal. This very comprehensive review of the article helps the reader understand both the focus of the article as well as some key elements. The separation of paragraphs also distinguishes aspects of the annotation. It also provides a quick review of the key research results. Dolnicar, Sara, and Melanie Randle. “What Motivates Which Volunteers' Psychographic Heterogeneity among Volunteers in Australia.” International Society for Third-Sector Research 18 (2007): 135-155. The researchers constructed market segments among Australian volunteers based on their motivation to donate time. They determined six homogenous subgroups among volunteers on the basis of their psychographic and demographic characteristics. The research provides valuable insights regarding ways to develop customized marketing messages in order to maximize the impact of appeal to volunteers. The explanation of the article is clear but the summary is so general that it is not clear what they found. “Valuable insights” is so broad a term that it does not provide useful information for future reference. Freeman and Lloyd Reynolds Sloan. “Basking in Reflected Glory: Three (Football) Field Studies.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 34.3 (1976): 366-375. One of the first studies into basking in reflective glory, this article contains some oft-cited results: fans are more likely to wear team colors the day after their team has won and fans often use the pronoun “we” when their team has won. Both of these findings underscore the phenomenon of basking in reflective glory and the relationship between sports results and perception of self esteem. This paper is one of the seminal studies of fan behavior, so it was important to read and cite, especially since several of the other studies also cited it. These insights have withstood the test of time and have impacted much of the research that followed it. This annotation separates the summary from the assessment, making it easy to review and use the comments for future research. The summary is incomplete, and it does not provide as much evaluation of this particular article as it could. Kowske, Brenda J., Rena Rasch, and Jack Wiley. "Millennials' (Lack Of) Attitude Problem: An Empirical Examination of Generational Effects on Work Attitudes." Journal of Business and Psychology 25 (2010): 265-79. SpringerLink. Web. 10 June 2010. Through a case study, the authors describe how generational traits affect work attitudes of each generational segment in the workplace. The study further illustrates how millennials in particular are different from previous generations. The comments provide a good review of what the article is about, but there is no evaluation of its merits or usefulness. The limited description of its content – what are the traits and how do they affect attitudes is not clear – diminish its usefulness. Kwon, Hyungil H., Galen T. Trail and Donghun Lee. “The Effects of Vicarious Achievement and Team Identification on BIRGing and CORFing.” Sport Marketing Quarterly 17.4 (2008): 209-217. The article analyzes whether or not highly identified fans rely on basking in reflective glory or cutting-off of reflective failure to aid their fan experience. The authors found that CORFing (Cutting Off Refelected Failure) is a strategy favored by low identified fans. Highly identified fans are more likely to use BIRGing (Basking in Reflected Glory) strategies while less likely to rely on CORFing. This article was useful to the discussion of coping strategies and the reactions of highly identified fans. It underscored some of the findings of the other research which was helpful in establishing a pattern of BIRGing and CORFing behavior. Although brief, the summary provides useful information about the article andan explanation of how fan behaviors can be differentially explained by these two processes. The lack of critical commentary weakens the annotation a bit. Wann, Daniel L. and Waddill, Paula J. "Predicting Sport Fan Motivation Using Anatomical Sex and Gender Role Orientation" North American Journal of Psychology. Vol. 5 (2003): 485-498. Examined the usefulness of anatomical sex, masculinity, and femininity in predicting fan motivation. This citation is accurate but so brief as to be useless; it provides no new information and only reiterates the title of the article. Wann, Daniel, et. al. “Motivational Profiles of Sport Fans of Different Sports”. Sport Marketing Quarterly. 2008. Vol. 17, No. 1, 6-19. The authors set themselves the objectives to see what are the differences in motivations of consumptions of sports fans of 13 different sports: figure skating, golf, professional wrestling, professional football, tennis, gymnastics, auto racing, professional basketball, college football, college basketball, boxing, professional baseball and professional hockey. Those sports were also termed into categories of individual and team, aggressive and non aggressive; and stylistic and non stylistic. They follow the 8 point Sport Fan Motivation Scale developed by Wann in the study of 1995, and it follows up a similar study that Wann did in 1999. This study was only for sport fans of the 13 sports in a couple of universities in the south western, with an homogeneous student sample. The eight factors that serve to explain motivations of sports consumers are: Escape, Eustress, Entertainment, Economics, Group Affiliation, Family, Aesthetics and Self Esteem. The study finds that Entertainment is the motive that loads more highly for sport consumers, followed by Eustress (Euphoric Stress, desire to gain excitement). Those lower are Family and Economics. Escape motive does not differ in any sport type and Aesthetic motives are higher for individual, stylistic and non aggressive sports. As well, economics is a big driver in boxing and Escape in professional wrestling. Self Esteem is highly regarded in team sports for a sense of team identification developed when young. Eustress is regarded more highly in aggressive sports and so does group affiliation, basically for the tailgating aspect of those sports. Finally, no significant differences were found between college and professional sports, contravening some findings in other study. This version is more detailed and provides an excellent summary of the article. The reader knows what is covered in the article and can connect this study with previous work that Wann did in the same area. Although very comprehensive summary, there are no comments on the usefulness or validity of the study. Summary Writing an annotated bibliography does not need to be difficult if you keep notes and make a short summary and assessment of each source as you read it. If you want until the end of your research project, the task of preparing annotations can be challenging. Recording your evaluative comments as you go can make a real difference. An annotated bibliography can be a gift to you for your future research and for others who ask for your advice about various sources. Therefore, take the time to think about what you write and write it carefully and clearly. Taking time now will save lots of time later. August 23, 2010 Revised September 21, 2010