Background

Academic writing entails building on the work of others scholars. Responding to others who have also written on your topic is what academics call “entering the conversation.” Before scholars join conversations, they must spend a great deal of time reading about their topic.

This is where annotated bibliographies come in. Think of an annotated bibliography as a collection of sources about a topic, compiled of entries that each contain (1) a citation of the source and (2) a basic explanation of the source’s main ideas.

Often when scholars are looking to learn about a new topic, they first consult an annotated bibliography to get a sense of the existing scholarship—a “lay of the land”, so to speak. Once they get a big picture view of what has been studied, they can pick out which particular sources are most interesting and relevant to their aims.

Task

For this assignment you will craft an annotated bibliography on “the Impact of Modern Technologies on Democracy.” You will craft entries for all of the following four sources (links to articles are back in the reading list for the week):

Bakshy et al., Science, “Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook”
Barberá et al., Psychological Science, “Tweeting From Left to Right: Is Online Political Communication More Than an Echo Chamber”
Boxell et al., “Is the internet causing polarization? Evidence from demographics” (working draft)
Quattrociocchi et al. “Echo Chambers on Facebook” (working draft)
In terms of formatting, yours should look something like this real-world example of the MLA Annotated Bibliography (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.. Beneath each MLA citation (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., provide an annotation (300 words or less) that summarizes the main ideas of the source’s argument. In total you will craft four entries.

“Who is my audience for this assignment?” you’re wondering.

You should imagine that you’re crafting this bibliography for other undergraduate scholars who might be interested in doing research on this topic. This is why your summaries should be specific, concrete, and (of course) accurate. Extremely generalized summaries will not be useful to other beginning scholars.

My advice on summarizing these complex studies?

Think: Question → Evidence → Conclusion

First, try to restate, in simple terms, the big question each study is trying to answer. Then outline the evidence or data (and perhaps how it was gathered). Next summarize the main conclusions reached by the scholars–focus on the main ones and try not to get lost in the small details here.

Warning: In order for you to write a successful paper in the coming weeks, it is vital that you understand the research in these articles. If it doesn’t appear you have a strong understanding, I will ask you to resubmit. If this happens, just know that I’m trying to save you time and effort in the long run.

rubric：Does the writer display a credible understanding of each text? This criterion is linked to a Learning Outcome Does the writer deliver clear, coherent, easy-to-follow summaries?