Annotated Bibliography Assignment

Annotated Bibliography

GOAL: bombard yourself with information regarding your topic. You will use the grounds on your position paper outline to do your searching. Ideally, you are trying to find sources that can be used to support your grounds. But do not lose sight of the purpose of the experience – getting informed.

FOUR PARTS OF AN ENTRY

Citation: MLA format (8^th edition); BOLD

Summary: 5 – 10 college length sentences; no first person pronouns

• This means you must find lengthier, comprehensive sources in order to summarize in 5 – 10 sentences. (No short readings for this assignment.) But it is also unreasonable to expect that you will read entire books, so do not use books unless you are actually reading them in full. Look for longer articles and chapters within books.

Evaluation: 5 – 10 college length sentences; is this source academically reliable?

• Credentials of author….organization/school?
• Bias? Tone?
• Date? (is date relevant?)
• Kinds of sources cited within the text…are they referenced? Etc…
• Peer reviewed? Journal? Publisher?

Statement of use: 1 – 2 sentences; is this source potentially useful to my paper?

Annotated bibliography checklist

üentries should be in alphabetical order, according to the first letter of the citation

üno bullets, numbers, or anything funky preceding the citation

üwrite in complete sentences

üavoid repetition of full citation information in the annotations

üavoid second person pronouns

üavoid opinion on your part in the summary section (no position commentary anywhere)

üuse a variety of academic sources (DO NOT USE: wikipedia, google, abstracts, blogs, dictionaries and encyclopedias…etc.) – stick to books, newspaper articles, and academic texts from the University databases accessed through WorldCat (on the library home page)

üavoid the words “says” and “talks about” – instead, use precise verbs such as:

asserts, argues, suggests, outlines, traces, hypothesizes, assesses, examines, explores, explains, recommends, finds that, addresses, points out, reveals, discloses, believes that, compares, defines, describes, proves, reasons, expresses, analyzes, advocates, rationalizes, concludes, proffers…

Sample:

Annotated Bibliography

Aldhous, Peter. “Free Your Mind and Watch It Grow.” New Scientist. vol. 199, no. 2670, 2008, pp. 44-45. Academic Search Complete. http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail ?sid=aa3d86ad-fa88-43b6-89d4-ad317dc883b6%40sessionmgr101&vid=4&hid=118&bdat a=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=34369629&db=a9h.

This article is an interview with psychologist Dr. Dweck. She has been studying psychology since 1972, and she is cited in almost all of my other sources. In the interview, she references her studies on growth mindsets and tells how she created a game called Brainology based on her findings that teaches kids about how the brain works in order to encourage a growth mindset. She states as well that a fixed mindset can lead to reduced resiliency and a greater chance of someone trying to cheat. That being said, she also notes that people with fixed mindsets are not always unsuccessful; however, they tend to be less successful than what they could be as well as less happy than what they could be. When asked how she has changed her own fixed mindset, she says that it was difficult, and it is an ongoing process. She says that when she went to school, her teacher arranged their seating charts based on an IQ test. This led to her believing that she was set at a certain IQ level that would never change. She says everyone, even those born with some form of a growth mindset, have to work to maintain it. When people face adversity, they have to confront negative thoughts and remind themselves that things are not concrete, and they can be improved through hard work and effort.

I believe this source is very credible because it is a direct interview with Dr. Dweck who has devoted her life to studying mindsets and has done many studies on this topic. The interviewer asked good questions that allowed her to state some of this research. He also asked follow up questions that led to answers that I had not found in my own research. The interviewer seems very neutral and asks questions to better understand Dweck’s research in a non-demeaning way.

I will definitely use this source in my paper. It gives me exact quotes from a credible researcher on this topic and brings it down to a more personal level.

Chan, David W. “Life Satisfaction, Happiness, and the Growth Mindset of Healthy and Unhealthy Perfectionists Among Hong Kong Chinese Gifted Students.” Roeper Review. vol. 34, no. 4, 2012, pp. 224-233. Academic Search Complete. http://web.b.ebscohost.com.www .libproxy.wvu.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid =ede197a9-1d6e-417b-affb-93ba10b 974a c%40 sessionmgr102&hid=118&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d #AN=8 2153951&db=a9h.

This study examined the effects of growth mindsets on 251 Chinese students who were mostly ages ten to sixteen and were deemed gifted because they excelled in one subject or another. They were each given a twenty-three-question survey to measure their levels of perfectionism, a five-question survey to measure their satisfaction with life, an eight-question survey to measure their overall happiness, and a twelve-question survey with six questions relating to having a growth mindset and six questions relating to having a fixed mindset to determine which category they fell under most. Each survey question consisted of a five-point scale ranging from one to five where one stood for “least like me” and five stood for “most like me.” Based on these results, they separated them it three groupings for comparison: non-perfectionists, healthy perfectionists, and unhealthy perfectionists. They found that healthy perfectionists were happier, more satisfied with life, and tended to have a growth mindset. Inversely, unhealthy perfectionists tended to be less satisfied with life, less happy, and more likely to have a fixed mindset. They believe that unhealthy perfectionists can be trained to develop more of a growth mindset in order to improve their overall quality of life.

This study seems credible, but its results cannot be generalized over other populations because the only participants involved were gifted Chinese students. The idea that types of perfectionism is related to mindsets and happiness levels is a new and interesting variable that I feel that I can use in my paper as a supporting fact. This study cites researcher Dweck, who has been referenced in all of my other sources and seems highly credible, so I feel that their background information came from a trustworthy source. They also heavily researched the surveys they planned to use to determine which varieties of them yielded the best results in previous experiments so that their results would be as accurate as possible. Some of these surveys were originally written in English, so they had language professionals translate and retranslate them into Chinese to make sure they were simple enough for all ages to understand but also still got the exact meanings across contained in the English questions. There did not seem to be many sources of bias in this study, so I believe it is credible.

I will most likely use this source in my paper but not heavily. It adds a new piece of interesting information to my topic, but there is not enough new information for it to be used as a major source of support.

Claro, Susana, David Paunesku, and Carol S. Dweck. “Growth Mindset Tempers the Effects of Poverty on Academic Achievement.” Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences of The United States of America. vol. 113, no. 31, 2016, pp. 8664-8668. Academic Search Complete. http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid… 3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=117205204&db=a9h.

This study took every tenth grader in Chile into account. They had students answer questions relating to their beliefs on intelligence, such as whether they thought that intelligence was an innate ability (fixed mindset) or if intelligence can be gained through learning new things and trying challenging tasks (growth mindset). Then, information was collected on students’ test scores in math and reading on Chile’s standardized tests. Additionally, parents were asked to report their yearly incomes. First, this study found that there was a positive correlation between high test scores and children with a growth mindset. Students who believed that their intelligence level was something they were born with did significantly worse of the standardized tests. Additionally, a positive correlation was found between children’s mindsets and family income level. Families who had low incomes often had children with fixed mindsets, and families who had higher incomes often had children that had growth mindsets. Based on previous studies, poverty levels have been a very strong predictor of children’s academic success, but the correlation between mindset and academic achievement shows a correlation comparable to that of poverty.

This is the first study to ever take into account the effects of mindset on a population from an entire nation. Because of the large sample size, I believe that this study is very credible. Also, one of the authors has been cited in many of my other sources, and this is not her first study on this subject. She seems very knowledgeable on this subject. She also states that while her findings are significant, they do not replace previous findings on the correlation between socioeconomic factors and academic success.

I will most likely use this source because it adds another layer to my support on how praise can encourage people to try harder things and do better in their lives.

Gambino, Thomas. “The Effect of Verbal Praise on Maze Completion.” Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research. vol. 21, no. 1, 2016, pp. 54-58. Academic Search Complete. http://web.a.e bscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=2&sid=61c20042-dc81-4fec-8b64-c739d 1b4f582%40 sessionmgr4009&hid=4109&bdata=JnNpdG U9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d %3d#AN=113419849&db=a9h.

In this study, random participants were asked to complete a maze in five minutes. One group of participants were told encouraging things at certain time markers while they completed the maze while the other group was told they were running out of time and that they needed to hurry which caused frustration. Every participant in both groups that completed the maze did so in under five minutes; however, 55% of people in the discouraging group gave up and did not complete the maze at all. Those in the encouraging group completed the maze much faster than those who completed the maze in the discouraging group.

I do not believe this source is credible. They cited many references in the background section and made their experiment based on previously done studies, but there were many sources of bias. A possible source of bias I can see is this experiment was voluntary response oriented; however, there were no incentives given for participating. The author identified a few other possible sources of bias, such as the participants being all college students and mostly Caucasian. Because of this, their findings cannot be generalized over a larger group of people, which puts a dent in their experiment’s credibility. Also, the number of participants is never stated.

I will not use this source. It does not give as much information as my other sources, and the participants did not vary enough to provide accurate results.