POLS2130-91 Annotated Bibliography Assignment Guidance
The written assignment in this course is an annotated bibliography of literature on a topic related to the relationship between public opinion, mass media and Canadian democracy. The purposes of this assignment are: 1. Help you gain a deeper understanding of a topic within the subject area of public opinion, mass media and Canadian democracy and, 2. Help you become familiar with UWindsor library services and to develop research and academic writing/style skills that will be useful throughout your university careers.
An annotated bibliography is a list of selected readings on a topic, with a description of each of the readings. For example, I might write a paragraph such as this about the Dominance and Decline textbook:
“Gidengil, E., Nevitte, N., Blais, A., Everitt, J., & Fournier, P. (2013). Dominance and Decline: Making Sense of Recent Canadian Elections. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. In Dominance and Decline: Making Sense of Recent Canadian Elections, Elisabeth Gidengil and her colleagues assemble eleven chapters of analysis about Canada’s 21st century federal elections but not including the most recent one, the October, 2019 ballot that re-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The book begins with a description of the basics of voting choice theory and then broadens into analysis of specific areas of potential vote determinants in Canada including economic considerations, the influence of leadership on voter choice, and regional identities. Gidengil et al. base their analysis on data collected through the Canada Election Study (CES), which gives it a solid quantitative basis. However, the book is not a dry statistical read. While there are numerous tables and charts, it is written with clarity and precision and will assist the general interest reader in comprehending how and why Canadians vote the way they do.”
To do well in this assignment you must find and read seven pieces of scholarly literature (either books or journal articles but not websites or journalism) on the topic of your choice, write a summary of each piece of literature, comment on it, and cite properly using APA style. You are not writing an argumentative paper; this is an annotated bibliography assignment. Your grade will reflect the quality of writing and detail in your descriptions of books and articles and your use of proper citation style. It is obvious when a student has not read a piece of literature and is merely parroting a description culled from the Internet.
Here is a link to a description of an annotated bibliography:
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/annotated-bibliography
Here is a link to UWindsor’s Leddy Library citation style guide page:
http://leddy.uwindsor.ca/citation-style-guides
The annotated bibliography assignment will be grading according to the following rubric:
Spelling/Grammar 20%
Facts/Research 20%
Clarity/Comprehension 20%
Style/Format 20%
Thoughtfulness/Originality 20%
