This first formal essay assignment is an annotated bibliography to help you gather research for your second essay.

The topic is Organic farming and its connection with healthy ecosystems.

An annotated bibliography is a list of materials (books, magazines, internet sites, subject indexes, etc.) that the author of a scholarly paper utilizes to support the premise of the essay, paper, or research assignment.

PURPOSE:

• review the literature on a particular subject;
• demonstrate the quality and depth of reading that you have done;
• exemplify the scope of sources availablesuch as journals, books, websites, and magazine articles;
• highlight sources that may be of interest to other readers and researchers
• explore and organize sources for further research.
• When set as an assignment, an annotated bibliography allows you to get acquainted with the material available on a particular topic.

Questions to consider

Please carefully consider the texts that you select for your annotated bibliography.

Please just keep the following questions in mind to help clear up your choices.keep the following questions in mind to help clarify

What topic/ problem am I investigating?

What question(s) am I exploring? Could you identify the aim of your literature research?

What kind of material am I looking at and why? Do I need journal articles, reports, policies, or primary historical data?

Am I being judicious in my selection of texts? Do you know if each text relates to my research topic and assignment requirements?

What are the essentials? Should I include seven (7) sources in various texts on my topic? Am I finding them? Are the sources valuable or often referred to in other texts?

Required Contents Your annotated bibliography must contain seven (7) sources from a variety of formats and with varying viewpoints on the same topic.

You must include the following sources: Two (2) scholarly journal articles An article from a subject encyclopedia/encyclopedia entry/Wikipedia An article from a popular magazine A Web site

The remaining sources are your choice. Other acceptable resources include government documents, interviews you conducted, lectures or speeches you attended television programs, radio programs, or films.

Assignment Requirements/Constraints 1. Cite all of your sources in Modern Language Association (MLA) style and American Psychological Association (APA) style. 2. Arrange citations alphabetically by author. 3. Write the qualifications/authority of the author (If your source is a website or any other source, you can determine why you think it is credible or not). 4. Write a summary of each source (What is the main idea/intent of the source). 5. Compare one source with another source (How are the ideas presented? What are you comparing and why). 6. Give your opinion of the source (What do you think of the argument/information and why).