As one of the preliminary steps in your research and writing process, you will conduct a short personal interview that will serve as one of the sources for your project. If you decide that you do not want to use the interview that you conduct today, you are welcome to include another one in your project. Keep in mind, however, that the interview you include in your project must be conducted with a student currently enrolled in section 20 or 21, and the subject of the interview must be the subject of your project.
Questions to Ask Your Interviewee Include the Following:
- What experience, if any, did you have with the subject (the reading or the aspect of the course) before you encountered it in English 1103?
- Has it changed your perspective on reading and/or writing? If so, how?
- Will you continue to pursue the subject (read more work by the author, continue the classroom practice or activity) after the conclusion of the semester?
Introducing an Interview Quotation
After you conduct your interview, compose on the worksheet provided a sentence in which you introduce a quotation with a signal phrase, such as “According to First Name Last Name,” or “First Name Last Name notes or observes or points out that . . . .” Your quotation will not be followed by a parenthetical citation because it is a form of oral communication (without page or paragraph numbers).
Composing a Work Cited Entry for Your Interview
Follow your quotation with a work cited entry that follows this format:
Work Cited
Last Name, First Name. Interview. Conducted by First Name Last Name. Day Month Year.
Note that your work cited entry should include a hanging indent.
The complete final essay and annotated bibliography assignment is included below.
Final Essay and Annotated Bibliography Assignment
OVERVIEW
An annotated bibliography is a list of sources on a subject that includes a summary of each source. Some bibliographies include additional information, such as the authors’ credentials. That is the type of bibliography that you will compose along with your final essay for the course.
KEY FEATURES
- An introductory essay of three or more paragraphs that (1) presents the subject of your bibliography, and (2) addresses your purpose for compiling it. In other words: What drives your research? What interests you about the subject, and what question/s do you seek to answer about your subject?
- A complete MLA-style bibliographic entry for each source.
- A one-paragraph summary of each source followed by a shorter second paragraph that presents the writer’s credentials and addresses the purpose that the source might serve in a larger project. Would it serve as a point of comparison or contrast to another source? Would it support or challenge an idea presented in another source? Is it a secondary source that sheds light on the meaning of a primary source? The last question pertains primarily to bibliographies that focus on one of the writers studied in the course.
PRELIMINARY WORK—What to Complete in Class Today
Personal Interview
Your final essay and annotated bibliography will focus on one of the authors we have studied or one of elements of the course, including (1) blogging in the classroom, (2) limiting screen time, (3) writing longhand, and (4) playing Scrabble. As a starting point, you will conduct a short personal interview that will serve as one of the sources for your project. If you decide that you do not want to use the interview that you conduct today, you are welcome to include another one in your project. Keep in mind, however, that the interview you include in your project must be conducted with a student currently enrolled in section 20 or 21, and the subject of the interview must be the subject of your project.
Questions to ask your interviewee include the following:
- What experience, if any, did you have with the subject (the reading or the aspect of the course) before you encountered it in English 1103?
- Has it changed your perspective on reading and/or writing? If so, how?
- Will you continue to pursue the subject (read more work by the author, continue the classroom practice or activity) after the conclusion of the semester?
After you conduct your interview, compose on the worksheet provided a sentence in which you introduce a quotation with a signal phrase, such as “According to First Name Last Name,” or “First Name Last Name notes or observes or points out that . . . .” Your quotation will not be followed by a parenthetical citation because it is a form of oral communication (without page or paragraph numbers).
Follow your quotation with a work cited entry in this format:
Work Cited*
Last Name, First Name. Interview. Conducted by First Name Last Name. Day Month Year.
*Note that you will use the header annotated bibliography, not works cited, in your final essay and annotated bibliography.
Annotated Bibliographic Entry
After you complete your personal interview, compose an annotated bibliographic entry for the text that serves as the starting point for your project. (See the list below.) Your annotated bibliographic entry consists of three parts: (1) the MLA-style work cited entry, as shown below, (2) a one-paragraph summary, and (3) a paragraph of commentary—see the third bullet point under the heading KEY FEATURES.
Bahr, Sarah. “The Case for Writing Longhand.” New York Times, Jan 21, 2022. ProQuest, https://libproxy.highpoint.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/case-writing-longhand/docview/2621453011/se-2.
Barthelme, Donald. “The School.” The Best American Short Stories 1975, edited by Martha Foley, Houghton Mifflin, 1975. pp. 8-11.
Junod, Tom. “The Falling Man.” Esquire, vol. 140, no. 3, Sept. 2003, pp. 176+. Gale Academic OneFile Select, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A106423422/EAIM?u=hpu_main&sid=bookmark-EAIM&xid=ce48797f.
Kay, Jonathan. “Scrabble is a Lousy Game.” The Wall Street Journal, 4 Oct. 2018. ProQuest, https://libproxy.highpoint.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/scrabble-is-lousy-game-why-would-anyone-play/docview/2116081665/se-2?accountid=11411.
Keller, Helen. “The Day Language Came into My Life.” Chapter Four. The Story of My Life. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/keller/life/life.html.
Lewis, Michael. Chapter One: “Back Story.” The Blind Side. 2006. Norton, 2009. pp.15-16.
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Writing on Computers vs. Writing on Paper.” Writing Analytically, 8th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2019. pp. 124-25.
Sedaris, David. “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Me Talk Pretty One Day. Little, Brown, 2000. 166-73.
Wolf, Maryanne. “Skim Reading is the New Normal. The Effect on Society is Profound.” The Guardian, 25 Aug. 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/skim-reading-new-normal-maryanne-wolf.
ASSIGNMENT DIRECTIONS
- Begin by conducting a short personal interview and an annotated bibliographic entry for the appropriate source listed above, or on page two (the one that focuses on your subject), and complete the worksheet provided. For more information. See the paragraphs under the header PRELIMINARY WORK—What to Complete in Class Today.
- Use the HPU Libraries site, https://www.highpoint.edu/library/, and Google Scholar to locate a minimum of three additional reliable and relevant print sources (articles, essays, and/or books) devoted to the same subject. Compose your summaries and commentaries in complete sentences, introduce any quotations with signal phrases, and include parenthetical citations where needed. Your bibliography must include five sources, four of which must be print. (Your personal interview is a nonprint source.) If you wish to include an additional non-print source, such as a video, you may include that as a sixth source.
- After you have composed your annotated bibliographic entries, write an introductory essay that (1) presents the subject of your bibliography, and (2) addresses your purpose for compiling it. In other words: What drives your research? What question do you seek to answer about your subject? Also, (3) What larger project might develop from your bibliography? Would it be a project for a course in psychology, science, education, or another discipline? Address all five of your sources in your essay, and quote at least two of them.
Note: Though your introductory essay will precede your annotated bibliography, you will compose it last because you will need to re-read and summarize your sources before you will know how to address them in your essay.
DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCHING, DRAFTING, REVISING, AND SUBMITTING
- Devote today’s class primarily to conducting a personal interview and composing an annotated bibliographic entry for the text that serves as a starting point for your research. You will have two additional Wednesdays to work in class on your final essay and annotated bibliography before you post your revision to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog.
- Before class on the due date: Post a copy of your revision to Blackboard and to your blog. In your blog post, omit the first-page information included in your file submitted to Blackboard (your name, professor’s name, course and section, and date). Add to your blog post an image that documents some part of your writing process away from the screen, such as the summary of your source in your journal, today’s worksheet, or a page of your draft. Also add an embedded link to a relevant web site. Even though your work for this assignment will take place primarily in front of the screen, your writing process still involves putting pen to paper, and photographic documentation of that on your blog is a requirement of the assignment.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website. Also review the posts on my blog devoted to Scrabble tips
