Skills Lesson: Gathering Information Practice

organize your source information into proper MLA format

To create an annotated bibliography, you would need to begin by gathering all your source information. In an annotated bibliography, you need to include each source, written in proper MLA format, that you will likely use for your research paper. In addition, for each source you must write a summary and some sort of commentary for each source. You can include paraphrases or quotations that seem especially helpful. Essentially, the annotated bibliography is a streamlined way to keep track of all your sources so you do not have to rifle through all your notes each time you want to find out what a particular source has to offer to the end research project.

Quotations, paraphrases, and summaries should all be used during the research process, but it is vital to know the difference between the three. A quotation is the exact words from a source. If you ever write down a quotation from a source, you need to make sure that you write quotation marks around every part of the excerpt that is directly quoted. A paraphrase is also a source excerpt, but it is written in your own words. A summary is much shorter than either a quotation or a paraphrase. It contains the main ideas of a source in your own words.

a day-by-day record of the research process

The most important information to record, which will avoid trouble later, is the author, title (of the piece, publication, or website), publisher, copyright date, date accessed (for Internet sources only), the location of the source (in case you want to find it again), the volume, issue, edition, and page number (for print sources) or URL (for Internet sources).

quotations, paraphrases, summaries, and personal comments

#1 Saricks, Joyce G. The Reader's Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction. Chicago: American Library Association, 2001. 186. Print. Summary: This passage is an introduction to the "Psychological Suspense" genre. Commentary: I find this passage interesting because it relates books to movies in a way that makes sense to me. Also, I like the definition that the author uses to explain "psychological suspense." She calls it "horror + suspense," making use of two genre terms that are more familiar to people than her term "psychological suspense."

I, II, and III

Bibliographic Card Source number: 1 Saricks, Joyce G. The Reader's Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction. Chicago: American Library Association, 2001. 186. Print. Note Card Source number: 1 Heading: Definition of Psychological Suspense Text: "These are books that play with our minds, that create frisson of unease, that blend the creepiness generated by the Horror genre with the tension inherent in Suspense." Page number: 186

MLA-style source information